


Something's Gotta Give

by gayfranzkafka



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Alcoholism, M/M, Peg and Margaret are lesbians (but not together), and also hawk DOES eventually say i love you and DOES stay very long, but with more trauma and alcoholism, please see notes before chapters for some content warnings, this fic is like if sufjan's "futile devices" were a story
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:13:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 74,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25720393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gayfranzkafka/pseuds/gayfranzkafka
Summary: B.J. hadn’t left a note, but after the war ends, he sends Hawkeye a letter every day. In return, for two and a half years, he receives radio silence, aside from one letter that Hawkeye sends him in January of ’54. But then, after so long of hearing almost nothing, one unexpected phone call right before Yom Kippur spirals into this, into Hawkeye showing up on B.J.’s doorstep. 10 p.m., drunk, in the rain.But this all comes later. First, the war ends, and they go home to their different houses in their different states.___In which Hawkeye & B.J. are repressed gay idiots who think they're in unrequited love and try and stay away from each other until they can't anymore.
Relationships: B. J. Hunnicutt/Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce, Margaret Houlihan/Charles Emerson Winchester III lavender marriage, Peg Hunnicutt/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 219
Kudos: 169





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **CW: suicidal ideation (if you want to skip it, just don’t read the paragraph that starts “He wants to quit dreaming” & the following two paragraphs – pick back up on the one that begins “And that’s why he doesn’t write back”)  
> **  
> ALSO I said this in the tags but blanket CW for alcoholism throughout this whole fic

B.J. hadn’t left a note, but after the war ends, he sends Hawkeye a letter every day. In return, for two and a half years, he receives radio silence, aside from one letter that Hawkeye sends him in January of ’54. But then, after so long of hearing almost nothing, one unexpected phone call right before Yom Kippur spirals into this, into Hawkeye showing up on B.J.’s doorstep. 10 p.m., drunk, in the rain. 

But this all comes later. First, the war ends, and they go home to their different houses in their different states.

***

_Dear Beej,_

_Can I call you Beej? I mean, I know I’ve been calling you that for years, but it feels weird to write it down like this. It feels weird to write anything down, which means I probably won’t end up sending you this letter. I’m sure I’ll end up stuffing it in some shoebox underneath my bed instead like a kid with their first porno mag. But still, I wanted to try and write you something, even if I never send it. I want you to know why I haven’t written back yet. Your letters keep coming. One every day. I want you to know it’s not because I don’t care._

_Remember that time I got concussed and stayed with that Korean family that didn’t understand a word I said? I think I told you about how I just kept babbling away anyway, even though we know by now that it’s a myth that you’ve got to keep yourself awake when you have a concussion. That’s how I feel, now, all the time. Like I’ve got to keep talking, only I don’t know why, and I don’t know anyone who will understand a thing I’ve got to say. Only after so long of no one understanding me, I’m starting to get quiet._

_Now, just like then, I’m afraid to go to sleep. But it’s not for the reasons you might think. I mean, yeah, sure, there are the nightmares. Of course there are the nightmares. Every night, it’ something. They’re bringing dad in through the door on a stretcher and I have to operate on our kitchen table, only I can’t find where the blood is coming from. Or I can’t feel my hands. Or my hands are shaking and I cut open an artery and do more damage than good. It’s amazing how inventive our brains are. Every night, a new one. Even having the same one twice would be easier than this. Sometimes, it’s not my dad on the table, it’s one of the neighborhood kids. ~~The dreams with the kids are the worst.~~_

_And sometimes, it’s you. The only way I get to see you now is covered in gore in my dreams._

_But the nightmares aren’t what keep me from sleeping, not really. Remember when Margaret and I got caught in the shelling behind enemy lines? Well, I never told you this, but about a day after I came back, Father Mulcahy pulled me aside and told me that while I was gone, you’d stayed awake the whole time, that you’d said, “I can’t sleep. I keep expecting him to walk in the door.” He told me that like it was something I should know. I don’t know why._

_But that’s what I keep thinking. I keep expecting you to walk in the door. I can’t sleep because every time I wake up I think, for a second, that I’m still in the war. But that’s not what fucks me up. What fucks me up – what’s fucked up – is that, once I realize I’m not, I actually get sad about it. It’s not that I miss the killing, the death, the food. But what I mean when I say that I think I’m in the war is not that I wake up waiting for the sound of shells falling or gun fire or the call on the intercom that we’ve got wounded coming in. What I mean is, I wake up and I look over to my right, and just for a second, I expect to see you there. Only you’re not._

_That’s why I can’t send you this letter. That’s why I haven’t written back. How am I supposed to tell you any of this stuff without sounding even crazier than you’d expect for someone who just got back from Korea? I send you this and you’d have me locked up. So thanks for the letters, really. But I don’t know what to say right now._

Hawkeye looks down at the paper, wondering how to sign off. _Sincerely? Best Regards? Yours? Your ever loving?_ None of them feel right. In the end he can’t even finish the letter, let alone send it.

***

B.J.’s letters are never about much. The weather. The food. He writes about Erin, sometimes, but very little, if ever, about Peg. But even though he’s been writing Hawkeye for weeks, now, he feels no closer to saying all that he needed to say than he had been in Korea.

Still, he can’t stop writing. He can’t get over Hawk’s face when they said goodbye, when Hawk had said, “We’ll have dinner?” He needs Hawkeye to know that he cares, that he cares deeply and far beyond dinner, only he doesn’t know how to say it. Not with Peg still here, and Hawk in Maine. He can’t say anything, but he can’t say nothing, either, so he settles for this, for these letters that he hates himself for. But still, he doesn’t stop, if only because he knows he’d hate himself more if he didn’t write anything at all.

B.J.’s been having dreams, bad ones, every night since he got back. Almost always about Hawk. Hawkeye is hurt, and B.J. knows he’s hurt, only he doesn’t know where to find him, and Radar is following him around camp saying if he _doesn’t_ find Hawkeye soon he could die. Or, sometimes, he spends hours operating on him only to suddenly realize Hawkeye wasn’t injured in the first place and he’s been cutting him senselessly to pieces this whole time.

It took only two days before he stopped coming to bed when Peggy did. He feels guilty, a deficient husband. What else is new? Only now he has to look at her, here in the flesh, every day, and try to reconcile how much he cares about her with the fact that he’s not sure he still loves her. He’s not sure he ever did. He’d fallen for Peggy when they were young because she’d seemed like the best woman in all the world to him. If he can’t love her, there must be something broken inside him. If he can’t love her, he knows he sure as hell won’t be falling for any other woman any time soon. He tells himself that what he’s feeling is normal for someone who’s just gotten back from Korea, that it’ll soften with time. They have a daughter, for God’s sake. So he wakes up in the morning and smiles at Peggy, he mows the tiny patch of grass in their backyard and brings in lemons from the tree and after dinner he drinks four vodkas on the rocks in a row and goes to bed only after he’s sure she’s asleep.

Peggy, for her part – when the war was over and she knew B.J. was coming home, she’d been happy. Really. She cared about the man and wanted him out of a war zone. But part of her had hoped – well, the way he’d written about Hawkeye, she’d half expected him to bring the man home with him. She knew it was a ludicrous wish, but when B.J. had left for the war – she’d been devastated at first, and raising Erin on her own had been far from easy. She’d had to reach out more, build a new support network. She’d met other women in a similar position to her, women trying to figure out how to raise young children on their own unexpectedly. And one woman in particular – Cynthia.

Cynthia and Peg had started to spend a lot of time together. Taking turns cooking dinners for one another, going out to movies or coffee, making day trips to the beach – all the little things they might’ve done with their husbands, if their husbands had been home. They started to joke that they were playing house. But despite the jokes, the longer the war went on, the more it felt to Peggy like it was _B.J._ she’d been playing house with. They’d fallen in love when they were so young, going through all the steps they felt like they were supposed to – the marriage, the house, the kid. Not that Peggy didn’t love Erin. She didn’t regret having her daughter for a second. But the way she and B.J. had structured their life – he cleaned the gutters and she did the cooking, he got the car repaired and she did the dusting. Everything they did, they did because they were _supposed to_. With Cynthia, it felt like the whole world opened up. Peg started learning how to repair sinks, toilets, cars, so she could take care of herself, so she could take care of Cynthia. One day, she came in from a day of working on Cynthia’s car, and Cynthia had dinner waiting on the table, and before she even realized what she was doing, she’d leaned in to kiss Cynthia hello. And before she had time to worry what Cynthia would think, Cynthia was kissing her back.

Peggy felt guilty, sure, but with those letters about Hawkeye, not to mention the state of their sex life before B.J. had left for Korea – there were all these little things that Peg thought might add up to something. Maybe she and B.J. had been drawn to each other because they _were_ kindred spirits, just not the kind that should’ve gotten married. So Peg had wanted B.J. to come home, to be safe, to see his daughter, but she had hoped he might bring Hawkeye with him.

But B.J. had come home alone. More than that, he’d come home looking devastated. It wasn’t just the war. It was the war, but it wasn’t _just_ the war. _Hawkeye thinks we’re just going to have dinner once a year._ Peg was confused. Had they broken up? Had she, God forbid, _misread_ the situation, and now here she was with a mistress and a husband who still wanted to spend the rest of his life with her? She is going to say something to him, to come clean about it (well, maybe not about the fact that it’s a _woman_ she’s seeing, but about the fact that there’s someone else in her life), only she’s waiting. He’s _just_ returned home. She can’t do that to him yet, not if she really was misreading the signals and he still loves her. Still, she can’t help but feel grateful that he comes to bed only after she pretends to be asleep.

It’s after Peggy goes to bed and B.J. is still awake that he writes Hawk the letters. He doesn’t write anything of substance because the only things he really wants to say he can’t speak aloud, let alone write down. And still, he looks forward to the moments he writes to Hawkeye more than almost anything in his day (aside from his time with Erin) because it’s the only time he allows himself to get fully lost in his thoughts about the other man. If Hawk isn’t writing back, well, that’s probably for the better. _I’m a married man, after all,_ B.J. thinks to himself, and then wonders immediately after why the hell _that’s_ the thought that popped into his brain. B.J. thinks Hawk probably wants nothing to do with him, now – hell, he’s probably moved into some bachelor pad with Trapper and is living it up now that he’s finally out of the war. Why would he want to waste his time replying to B.J.’s little notes about family life?

Still, after a few weeks of hearing nothing, B.J. can’t help but get worried. He remembers Hawk’s plan was to move home to take care of his dad. B.J. finds the number and dials it one early evening before he hast time to really think about it. It rings five times before Hawkeye’s father picks up. Daniel Pierce recognizes B.J.’s voice, somehow. B.J. thinks painfully of the last time they talked, years ago, when it Daniel who had been way on the other side of the world calling _B.J._ because he was worried. “One moment,” Daniel tells B.J., and then there is a long silence.

When Daniel comes back to the phone, he says Hawk is out. The way he says it, B.J.’s not so sure it’s true, but he just asks Daniel to tell Hawk he called. This happens a few more times – every few weeks, B.J. tries again, and every time, it’s Daniel who answers the phone. Eventually, B.J. gets the hint, and he stops calling. 

But he doesn’t stop writing. Not because he hopes to get an answer back, anymore. It feels, now, like some sort of strange penance. Penance for what, he doesn’t quite know. But he can’t help feeling there’s _something_ he’s got to atone for. With Hawk, with Peggy, with the world. 

***

When Hawkeye first gets back to Maine, he spends most of his days in his room despite having told himself that he was going home to take care of his father. His father will knock on his door every few hours and ask if he wants anything, another section of the paper, another cup of coffee. Hawkeye wants nothing, or rather, he wants very desperately one thing that he can’t have. He tells his father it’s the jetlag, that he’ll adjust soon. Hawkeye knows, deep down, that his father wants to take care of him. What Hawkeye wants is to never have to take care of anyone or be taken care of by anyone ever again.

He wants to quit dreaming, and quit reading the letters B.J. sends him, and quit trying to write one back, and some days, he wants to quit waking up altogether. But he doesn’t. He keeps waking up. For one thing, if he dies right now, he doesn’t know who the hell his memory will be a blessing for. The thought is so depressing that it sends him all the way back around into wanting to live again. The only thing worse than being an unemployed, alcoholic Korea Vet with depression would be being a Korea vet who shoots himself in the head. Plus, due to his pacifistic ideals, he still doesn’t know how to use a gun, so he’d probably just end up shooting himself in the foot or something embarrassing like that, and then they’d probably force him to _talk_ to someone.

And he _can’t_ talk to someone. Because if he talked to someone they’d think it was all just trauma from the war, and maybe he could talk about that, but what he can’t talk about is B.J., even when B.J. is what he wants to talk about most of all.

Because that’s the other thing, the other reason he doesn’t shoot himself. Hawk doesn’t believe in life after death, so if he died, he wouldn’t know that B.J. is out there, somewhere, still in the world. And he needs to know that. Even if he can’t have the man, and he can’t write back, even if he never sees him again, he needs to keep living because the world needs there to be someone who loves Beej as fiercely as he does, even from a distance, even if he doesn’t say it. He can’t bear to leave behind a world full only of people who don’t see B.J. like he does. So Hawk does his best to sleep as little as he can, but he wakes up all the same and then goes about another day full of quiet adoration for the man who has a family in San Francisco and letters about the weather for Hawk.*

And that’s why he doesn’t write back, and that’s why he never accepts the long-distance calls that his father always picks up. Because B.J.’s got a family in San Francisco, and Hawk’s got, well, nothing here in Maine. The thought of hearing B.J.’s voice through the crackle of a phone line instead of right up next to him is the only thing worse than the thought of not hearing his voice at all. That’s the way Hawk’s been operating these days: finding ways to live within the margins of all the second-worst things life could offer him. He knows that even if he writes B.J. back, even if he picked up the phone, that it would only be a matter of months before the frequency of the letters and phone calls began to wane, before Hawk became someone B.J. thinks of as “one of his war buddies”, when he thinks of Hawk at all. Hawk figures it’s better to rip the band aid off now, get it over with. Only thing is, it won’t seem to stop hurting.

 _Some rest and relaxation this is,_ Hawk thinks to himself. He knows he’d told everyone when they were leaving Korea that he was going to go home and do nothing for a while, but after a few weeks of unbearable nothingness, he realizes he can maybe stand it even less than he can stand the thought of going back to work. His dad tries to get him to come to join the family practice, but Hawkeye refuses. Instead, he gets a job in the E.R. His dad thinks he’s crazy, and maybe he is, but he tells his father, “This is the skillset I have. I should at least put it to use.” That’s part of the truth.

The rest of the truth is more complicated. He wants to put his skillset to use, sure, and he remembers what Sidney said, the longer he stays away from it the worse it’ll be. He thinks maybe Sidney wasn’t actually advocating for Hawk immediately doing trauma work in the E.R. But it feels like a scab he can’t stop picking at. Somehow, not touching it and waiting for it to heal over is worse than returning to it, again and again, and inflicting more pain in a way that he can control. Hawk finds that, after he gets back from Korea, he can’t stop reading anything he can get his hands on about the conflict. Searching out pictures documenting the worst of the war. Picking up as many shifts as he can get.

And he’s still drinking, worse than in Korea maybe. He’s a doctor. He should have known it wasn’t just a habit he could pick up for the war and discard when he felt like it. He meets people in bars and tells them with candor and without great emotion about the worst of the things he’d seen in Korea until they make their excuses and leave. He meets up sometimes with old friends who have also moved home, but often they would rather talk about anything other than the war, whereas Hawk can’t bear to talk about civilian life, and soon enough they often start to beg off meeting up. Often, he finds himself drinking in bars all alone, or in his room, or in his car as soon as he gets off of a shift. He can’t tell if it’s because of or in spite of his job at the ER that he drinks, because of or in spite of the letters from B.J., because of or in spite of the war being over. Maybe there isn’t even a reason, anymore.

***

Six months into being home, Hawkeye writes a letter to B.J. that he actually sends. B.J. reads:

_Beej —_

_Got your letter. You know, the one you sent yesterday. And the day before that. And the day before that. You must be single-handedly keeping a dozen or so hard working people at the USPS employed. Someone’s got to. It sure as hell hasn’t been me._

_They’re great, though, really. It sounds like you’re doing well. With Erin. With Peggy. Sometimes, when I start to wonder why the hell the army even bothered to send us home, I think of you, in San Francisco with them, and it makes sense again._

_But me saying that doesn’t make sense, wondering why they sent us home after so many years of waiting for nothing but that. If you’re curious why I haven’t been writing – that’s why. All I’m good for is a first-class comedy act or a monologue that sounds like it’s straight out of the final act of Hamlet. I’m not deigning to call myself Hamlet – I’m nowhere near as poetic is he is. If anything I’m probably one of those sad fucks Rosencrantz or Guildenstern who the playwright sends to die off stage after a few lines of less-than-pithy banter.**_

_See? This is why you don’t want a letter from me. The first-class comedy doesn’t transfer well to the page so all I’m left with is morose prose that’s liable to make you sicker than the food in the mess tent. And there goes my attempt at a joke, falling flat on the page without you here to pick up my slack._

_I know you keep asking me to come visit, but as Ella sings, Hate California, it’s cold and it’s damp – that’s why the lady is a tramp. And I’m sure your lovely wife doesn’t want me tramping around your fine home._

_If they decide to put another war on, meet me in the trenches. Otherwise, we’ll always have – well, not Paris, but at least the clock tower in Grand Central._

_—Hawk_

It’s after B.J. gets this letter that he starts drinking so much Peggy decides she has to say something. B.J. listens to her, decides he might as well not drink. What does it matter to him? Not drinking, drinking. It’s a mechanical thing. He can turn it on, he can turn it off. People say they drink to feel something, or to feel nothing. B.J.’s natural state, it would seem now, is to feel nothing. He doesn’t need the alcohol for that, and no amount of drinking seems to make him feel anything. So he joins some program, listens to the parts that help and ignores all the parts about God, and even though he quits the program six months later he’s quit drinking by then too.

Soon after B.J. had come home, Peg had helped him look for jobs, got him an interview at a small family practice, and somehow, he nailed it. Of course he did. He’s still B.J., underneath all the trauma, and he knows how to make that shine through when he needs to. He has a regular schedule, gets to weight healthy children and prescribe cold medicine. He isn’t drinking. He and Peggy go out with friends, although they more often feel like her friends than his, even the couples they used to double-date with before the war. He gets to see Erin every day, gets to make her food, gets to watch her draw, to answer her questions. His life is good. It’s better than he thought it could be, and he tells himself that if he were another man, a better man, he’d be able to settle right back down to the way things were, only he isn’t, and he can’t, and still every night he writes Hawkeye a letter and still every night he goes to bed only after he’s sure his wife is asleep.

***

Hawkeye, for his part, can’t stop drinking. It’s a mechanical thing. He can turn it off or he can turn it on. Every night he thinks, _I don’t have to drink tonight_ and then he does. He might as well. People talk about alcoholism like it’s this sinking down, but for him, it’s the opposite. It’s like a rope swing out above the lake; each moment, he keeps telling himself to jump, but he doesn’t. Each moment, he feels his stomach drop more, and gets further from the things he knows while the view of the inevitable fall becomes worse. But still he stays clinging to the rope. He’s never been good at letting go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *I’m aware Mill Valley, where B.J. is canonically from, is not San Francisco, but he lives in the city for this fic because my grandparents/mom are from there and I want him to.  
> **If you’re here from my Rosencrantz & Guildenstern fic, I was actually working on this one _before_ & writing this singular line made me so distracted I decided I needed to literally write an entire play before returning to this fic. Anyway, it’s unfortunately turned this line into an annoyingly cutesy reference to my own writing, but I didn’t want to take it out because it’s what inspired the other fic. Anyway. Back to his letter.
> 
> Bro idk SOME people (me) only have 2 coping mechanisms for being unemployed & moving home due to covid and those things are playing the banjo and writing 55k words of M*A*S*H fanfiction in, like, one month, so here we are. The amount of hours I spent researching early 1950s gay poetry/divorce laws/etc. instead of prepping for a job interview earlier this week was… a lot.
> 
> Yes including the letters was inspired by Goethe’s _The Sorrows of Young Werther_. No I am not going to write in his style because a) Hawkeye IS just as over-dramatic as Werther but he lacks the love of nature that was so essential to the pastoral element of Goethe and b) no offense to Goethe but I would rather die than write in his style. But this fic IS kind of like: Goethe but Catherine (Peg) is a lesbian and Werther is gay (that’s just cannon, baby). And also no one dies at the end! Mostly it's actually just in my own style of writing and not imitating anything else so if people are here from my other fics I hope some of you still vibe with this! I'm not sure if it'll be exactly 10 chapters - it might be a little longer or a little shorter - but wanted to put my estimate at least.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **CW: brief discussion of disordered eating – if you want to skip it, don’t read the paragraph that starts with talking about B.J. buying a Kafka book & the paragraph after it – pick back up on the paragraph that starts “That’s how B.J. feels, upon his return from the war.”**
> 
> “Your dreams are alcohol inspired / I can't find a better way to face it / … / And you know I'll be fine / Just don't ask me how it's going” – Crowded House, “How Will You Go”

There’s a few hazy months where it seems like things might just stay the same for both of them, B.J. with his less-than-functional marriage and his kid and his family practice, Hawkeye with his drinking and the job at the E.R. But there’s a thread of deep unhappiness running underneath both their lives, and between them, connecting them, even if they don’t speak about it, even if they don’t speak. One tug and it all starts to unravel.

About a year after B.J. gets home, Peg sits him down on the couch one night after Erin’s asleep. He can tell something’s up immediately. Their marriage has been rocky ever since he got back, but she seems particularly tense tonight. She takes his hand, takes a deep breath, and then says, without looking at him, “There’s no good way to say this, so I’m just going to come right out with it. I want a divorce.”

Hearing it feels like jumping into the snow-melt cold of a mountain lake; he knew, on some level, that this was coming, but that somehow doesn’t lessen the shock of it. “Peggy, I—I know our marriage hasn’t been… it hasn’t been what it was. But I just got back. I only got back a year ago. I… I can go to therapy, we can do couple’s counseling, I haven’t been drinking, I—“

Peg interrupts him gently. “B.J., honey, you’re not doing anything wrong. That’s not why I want a divorce. It—it’s me. I’m just… I’m not happy, anymore. And I don’t think you are either.”

“It’s just the war, Peg, it—it messed everything up. But I don’t see how—how breaking our marriage to pieces is going to help either of us. We have Erin to think about.” B.J. gets so quiet Peggy almost doesn’t hear him as he adds, “I can’t lose Erin.”

It’s when he says this that Peggy realizes what he thinks this will mean. It’s 1954, after all. She could have full custody if she wanted without even lifting a finger. “No!” she tells him quickly, looking him in the eyes now as she assures him, “I want us to have joint custody of Erin. You’re a great father, B.J., I wouldn’t try to take her away from you. You’re even… you’re not a bad husband. That’s just not… what I want anymore.” That’s the closest she can come to telling him the truth. She wishes she could say more, but she still doesn’t know—is he like her, or is it really just the war? And if he’s not— _like_ her, then she can’t risk him taking Erin away from _her_. Not that she thinks he would, but—well, it’s hard to know how any man, even a good one, would react to knowing his wife turned lesbian while he was away at war.

That seems to calm him down a bit, but he still looks deeply unhappy. “Are you sure?” he says. “I can be better.”

“B.J., honey, this isn’t something—it’s not your job to fix this. I’m sure.”

“Please, Peg, you’re my—you’re my best friend,” B.J. says, and then he starts to cry, and then Peggy starts to cry too, because it’s true, what he said. They are each other’s best friend. They grew up together. They had a daughter together. In many ways, she still knows him so much better than she knows Cynthia, and she wishes that could be enough for her, for both of them. But it isn’t. It just isn’t, anymore. Not for her, and, she suspects, not for B.J. either, even if he hasn’t admitted as much to himself yet.

“This doesn’t mean I’ll be out of your life, B.J.,” she tells him. “We can still see each other. But—I mean, we haven’t slept together once since you’ve been home. Is this marriage really what you want?”

“I don’t know what I want,” B.J. tells her. “I don’t know.”

They talk longer into the night, and the divorce isn’t easy – even an amicable one takes time and money. Peggy moves in with her friend Cynthia, and B.J. gets Erin every other week, and he misses Peggy more now that she lives in North Beach than he did when he was all the way over in Korea. And he wants to write Hawk about it but he doesn’t. Because Hawk made it clear, in the one letter that he sent, that B.J.’s place is with his family, and he can’t bring himself to tell Hawk that he’s messed that all up. He can’t bear to write to Hawk about something like this and not hear back. But still B.J. finds that he can’t stop writing altogether. Usually now he writes two letters – one of everything he wishes he could say, and one he actually sends. He almost starts drinking again. The only thing that stops him is knowing that, when Erin stays with him, he’s the only adult in the house. He can’t be drunk because he needs to be able to take care of her. He can’t mess that up, too. At least not any more than he already has.

And still, months after the divorce, one thing that Peggy said keeps rattling around in the back of his mind. _I’m not happy, anymore. And I don’t think you are either._ She’s right, he wasn’t happy. He _isn’t_ happy. Only he can’t see what good acknowledging that will do him.

He has – _inklings_ about Peggy. He’s not stupid. Moving in with her friend Cynthia, well, okay, that makes sense, two divorcees helping each other out. But moving to North Beach in particular – he’s not unaware of the types of people that tend to hang out in that neighborhood. He wants to ask her – Cynthia and Peggy still invite him to dinner, sometimes (he thinks they feel sorry for him), and he could catch a moment alone with Peggy in the kitchen, if he wanted to. But asking her that – he can’t acknowledge that in her because that might mean having to acknowledge it in himself.

Because he is a homosexual. He knows that, now. Something about losing first Hawk and then Peg – both the losses hurt, but they hurt differently. Now that he’s single, now that he’s got no obligations to anyone, he could go down to North Beach himself sometime, find the right kind of bar, see if some man will smile at him or whisper a word in his ear or – he doesn’t know how these things are done. But he could figure out. Or he could go lean in some doorway, right on the threshold of City Lights, see Alan Ginsberg reading, or Jack Spicer or Robert Duncan. San Francisco is alive with homosexual men who had declared themselves to escape the war, who are anarchists or communists, who know how to pick up men or write poetry or both. The Black Cat had gone to court to assert its right to serve liquor to known homosexuals, and it had won. It isn’t easy, and it isn’t safe, but it could be done.

But B.J. had not declared himself before the war. He hadn’t known that there _was_ something within him that, if spoken aloud, might exclude him automatically from the world order of men concerned with killing and dying. B.J. cannot imagine a world in which he would have come to know it about himself—that he’s gay—if he hadn’t met Hawk. The two events—their meeting and his realization of being gay—are inextricably tied together in his mind, even if he’s acknowledged his sexuality to himself only now. So there seems to be, now that Hawk is gone, no point in opening back up the door to that alien world.

After he’d returned to the states, he’d picked up a short story collection by Kafka at Dog Eared Books. Hawk was always going on about Kafka, and B.J. had wanted to see for himself – despite the fact that he loves to read, having been pre-med in college means that there are still has some crucial gaps in his literary knowledge, Kafka being one of them. After rectifying this gap, there is one story in particular that he keeps going back to – “A Hunger Artist.” It’s about a man who works his whole life performing starvation in a cage for others to marvel at but who struggles to catch or maintain spectator’s attention. Toward the end of the story, the artist has starved himself so much he has all but disappeared in his cage when the supervisor of the circus re-discovers him. The hunger artist tells the man that he should not be admired. When the supervisor asks why, the hunger artist replies:

_“Because I had to fast. I can’t do anything else,” said the hunger artist. “Just look at you,” said the supervisor, “why can’t you do anything else?” “Because,” said the hunger artist, lifting his head a little and, with his lips pursed as if for a kiss, speaking right into the supervisor’s ear so that he wouldn’t miss anything, “because I couldn’t find a food which I enjoyed. If had found that, believe me, I would not have made a spectacle of myself and would have eaten to my heart’s content, like you and everyone else.”_

That’s how B.J. feels, upon his return from the war. If Hawk were here, maybe he would allow himself to imagine a different life, to wonder what he wants, what would make him happy. But Hawk isn’t here, and so he doesn’t.

His one tether to that other world outside of heterosexual life comes, occasionally, in the copies of _Poetry_ that arrive at his house every month. B.J. keeps one issue in particular by his bed like the Bible, the November 1954 one in which Frank O’Hara writes, _Now there is only one man I love to kiss when he is unshaven. Heterosexuality! you are inexorably approaching. (How discourage her?)_ It is inconceivable to B.J. that O’Hara not only didn’t keep this sentiment locked somewhere deep within himself but wrote it down and published it. But it’s precisely for that reason B.J. finds himself returning to the poem often—to remind himself that there are people who can make these parts of themselves known.

At this point, after writing to Hawk for so long without getting a response, B.J.’s starting to feel like it’s a ghost he’s writing to, a memory of a person. There’s a feeling of unreality, now, whenever he writes the same address on a new envelope and sends it. Hawkeye could have moved, for all he knows. He could be burning the letters. They could be getting lost in the mail. Maybe Crabapple Cove doesn’t even exist, maybe it’s one of those fantasies that Hawk made up for himself, the kind he used to include B.J. in. Maybe Hawk doesn’t exist at all anymore. Maybe he’s just some dream B.J. was having.

B.J. finds himself, for some reason, thinking back to that time during the war when he got the copy of _The Rooster Crowed at Midnight_ , the Abigail Porterfield mystery novel, and everyone was so eager to read it that he ripped out chapters after he’d read them to be passed around the camp. He and Hawk used to share everything, not just a tent and a job and an alcohol problem, but stories too. It had been almost a short-hand for them. It wasn’t just the alcohol which had been their escape; they had lived in stories, during the war. B.J. finds himself, now that he’s stopped drinking, turning more and more to stories.

Especially when Erin is here. One of her favorite stories to read is _Madeline_. She loves the part where Madeline gets her appendix out. “Just like daddy does!” she always says. There is something soothing for B.J. to hear the way his daughter sees him, to live, even just briefly every night, in a world where his surgical skills have only ever been used in a disaster as bad as a ruptured appendix. He starts reading Erin T.H. White’s _The Sword and The Stone_ , too, a retelling of King Arthur that he himself had been particularly fond of as a child. For weeks he finds himself as swept up as Erin in the stories of “Wart” (Arthur’s childhood nickname in White’s telling) being transformed by Merlin into an owl or speaking to trees. When the book ends, B.J. finds himself so bereft that he goes out and buys the volumes which followed, the ones White had written about Arthur’s older years and not so much with the same young audience in mind. And so B.J. finds himself reading, one night:

_[Lancelot] had already fallen in love with Arthur on the night of the wedding feast, and he carried with him in his heart to France the picture of that bright northern king, at supper, flushed and glorious from his wars._

B.J. cannot allow himself to leave his apartment and seek out other people like himself. He can’t bring himself to speak aloud or even write down what he knows to be true, either to Peggy or to Hawk. The one indulgence he allows himself is to seek out others like him in the world of fiction and poetry. He returns to passages like this one religiously, a few lines scattered throughout the book’s hundreds of pages.

And perhaps it’s because with each passing day Hawk begins to feel, to B.J., more and more like just a part of a story; perhaps because B.J. has always allowed himself to speak more candidly through the words of others; perhaps because he’s ashamed of returning so often to the same poems and wants them out of his house but can’t bear to throw them away; perhaps because he can no longer bear to maintain his silence but can’t bear to write a confessional either – whatever the reason, B.J. finds himself, one day, ripping the O’Hara poem out of the magazine, sticking it in an envelope, and sending that to Hawk instead of his usual letter. No explanation. No annotation. Just the words of someone else on the page, B.J.’s quiet voice somewhere within them.

***

Hawkeye is a high-functioning alcoholic until he’s not. It’s not that he starts to drink on the job or anything like that; he wouldn’t put a patients’ life at risk in that way. What he does start to do is to miss work. He drinks when he knows he has to go to work soon, and then he finds himself drunk, and then he doesn’t go to work. If Sidney were around he might label such behavior “self-sabotage” or “self-medicating” or both, but Sidney isn’t around, so the only person who says a thing about it is Daniel. Daniel says, “I wish you’d see someone about all this,” and Hawkeye says nothing, and Daniel lets the subject drop. But Hawkeye’s boss is not so willing to look past the issue.

Mid September 1955, he gets called in. “We’re putting you on extended leave,” his boss tells Hawk. His boss, one Robert Leroy, is about as old as Colonel Potter and perhaps even more forgiving, which makes the whole conversation somehow worse.

“Please don’t do that,” Hawkeye says. “I know I call in too much, but I’m one of the best doctors you’ve got.”

“You’re one of the best doctors we’ve got when you’re here. This is the E.R., Pierce. I need reliability. It’s unheard of to give a physician even as much leniency as I’ve already given you. I’m not saying you’re fired. I’m saying take two months off. Get yourself together. Come back and we can put this all behind us.”

“Robert. Bob. Bobby. Come on. Don’t do this to me. I can get my act together without being put on leave. Come on, please. I can take all the graveyard shifts. I won’t complain.”

“If you knew how much I had to fight to keep you on staff at all, you wouldn’t be pushing this,” Robert tells him. “Two months leave. We’ll reassess after that.”

For once, Hawk keeps his mouth shut.

It’s about two weeks after that that he gets the letter, or rather, the poem. The O’Hara that B.J. sent. It also just so happens to be the High Holy Days. There’s a reform synagogue a few towns over that Hawk only goes to during this specific time of the year. It’s where his mom used to take him, before she died. After she died, his dad, a lapsed Catholic, mostly stopped taking him. He found it too hard; it always reminded him too much of her. But because it reminded Hawkeye of her is precisely the reason he started going there again, just for the High Holidays, once he was old enough to drive himself. 

Though Hawk didn’t inherit most of the traditions of Catholicism from his father, he certainly inherited the guilt. And it’s always during this time of year that he finds himself most overcome with it. The people he’d most like to ask for forgiveness from, he doesn’t know how. He doesn’t even know the name of the mother who killed her child. He doesn’t even know the child’s name. He doesn’t know where the grave is, even if he could easily get back to Korea. And he doesn’t believe in God, so there’s no use trying to atone with him. Still, each year he is overcome almost to the point of paralysis by this incident in particular. Even if he knew who to talk to, how do you go about asking for forgiveness for something like that? And he knows that after you’ve asked three times, even if you are not forgiven, you are considered atoned, but he feels like he could ask one hundred times and still not leave that sin in 5713.* 

So Hawk’s already in a state when he reads the poem. “Meditations in an Emergency,” it’s called. _Why should I share you?_ he reads. _Why shouldn’t you get rid of someone else for a change? / I am the least difficult of all men. All I want is boundless love._ He thinks of B.J., with Peggy. _You don’t want me to go where you go, so I’ll go where you don’t want me._

He reads the poem four or five times through before he puts it down. _Why the hell is B.J. sending me a poem about getting your heart broken?_ he thinks. He worries, cold fear in his stomach, that maybe B.J.’s gotten a divorce, that he’s wrecked over Peggy and trying to tell Hawk the only way he knows how. Hawk feels like an absolute asshole for never writing back. He thought he was sparing his friend, but really he’s been sparing himself. How selfish is he? It’ll hurt to hear about Peg, about the divorce, but if that’s truly what’s happened – and Hawk can’t see any other explanation – he needs to do it. It’s this guilt, compounded with the guilt he always feels around Yom Kippur, that leads Hawk to pick up the phone and call B.J. That and the fact that God is about to seal the year, and even though Hawk doesn’t believe in God, something in him, call it superstition, suddenly can’t bear the thought of one more year of his going by without some small piece of B.J. in it.

As the phone rings, Hawk thinks wildly that maybe B.J. won’t even pick up, and he half wants that, half wants more than anything to hear B.J.’s voice. But B.J. does pick up, with a simple, “Hello?”

“Beej!” Hawk says into the phone, shocked to find tears in eyes.

“Hawk!” B.J. says, recognizing Hawk’s voice immediately through the static.

“Beej, I… I got your letter.”

“Which one?” B.J. laughs, but he sounds chocked up.

“All of them. But, also, the poem.”

“You got the poem,” B.J. says. He sounds hopeful, guarded.

“Look, I… I’m an ass. I don’t have any sort of excuse for not calling you. And it’s, you know, it’s the Ten Days of Repentance here… well, that’s true everywhere, but also here, and this is crazy, but I wanna… I wanna apologize, for not being a better friend. For not writing. Not calling. And I want to ask your forgiveness—it’s part of the ritual, you don’t have to say you forgive—“

But B.J. cuts him off before he can even finish his sentence. “Hawk, Hawk, of course I forgive you. This call must be costing you a fortune, don’t waste your time apologizing. It’s so good to hear your voice. How the hell are you?”

“I—but I mean—“ Hawk feels wild. He wants to prostrate before B.J., and here B.J. is, forgiving him after two years of not speaking as though it’s nothing. He’s got way too much he wants to say to the man and no idea how to make any of it come out of his mouth. Finally, he gets out, “I mean, I’m fine. Same as I ever was, you know me. How are _you_? How… how’s Peg?”

“Oh, Peg,” B.J. says. “She… I mean, we divorced, Hawk.”

“And you didn’t think to write me about it?!”

“I didn’t know if you were reading my letters,” B.J. says quietly.

Hawk says, all soft into the phone, “Of course I was reading your letters, B.J. Of course I was.”

“But why didn’t—“ B.J. starts, but can’t seem to finish the sentence, perhaps afraid to hear the answer.

“Because I’m an ass, is why. That’s all. How are you doing, with the divorce? Is Erin—“

“I still see Erin,” B.J. says. “Joint custody.”

“Oh, good. That’s good.”

There’s a silence, and then they both try to speak at once, and then they both apologize and tell the other person to talk. Finally, B.J. says, “But I mean, what about you? What have you been up to?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Got put on leave for my job at the E.R. Forced vacation. Remember when we used to fight tooth and nail for a day or two in Tokyo? And now here I am, complaining about the break.” He tries to say it like it’s a joke, but something in his voice betrays him.

“Hawk, that’s—I mean, maybe it’ll be good for you to, to rest. To take a break.”

“You sound just like my boss.”

“I don’t—just—“ There’s a pause. Then, “You could come out and see me, if you wanted.”

Hawk wants that more than anything in the world. He’s scared of how much he wants that.

“I’m afraid I wouldn’t be much fun,” is all he says.

“Hawk, _I’m_ not much fun,” B.J. replies. “Come see me and we can sit around not having any fun together.”

“Boy, what did that war do to us, huh?”

“I’m not sure so sure it’s just the war,” B.J. says softly.

Hawk reads into that all kinds of things that he doesn’t want to. Hearing B.J. sad, and so far away, and after so much time has passed not being quite sure exactly what his tone means—it all becomes too much for Hawk to handle, especially sober, and he says, “Beej, I’ve gotta—I’ve gotta go, it’s the High Holy days and we have to go to the synagogue soon, and like you said, with long distance, and—“

“Of course, of course,” B.J. says. “Don’t let a sad sack like me keep you on the line. But Hawk?”

“Yeah?”

“Try to write once in a while, will you?”

“I will,” Hawk says, and then he hangs up, heart pounding, hands shaking. Having apologized to B.J., he finds himself wanting to call up other people from the war. He feels, all of sudden, like he owes everyone he’s ever met an apology. And maybe, also, he thinks if he calls up the whole of the 4077 he can pretend the call to B.J. was just one of a pattern and not the most singularly heart-shattering three minutes of his life aside from right before he got on the chopper home.

He calls Margaret next because she’s written more than anyone except B.J. She picks up after three rings.

“Hi, Margaret,” Hawkeye says cheerfully into the phone. “It’s your buddy Hawkeye.”

“Don’t you ‘Hi, Margaret,’ me, _buddy_ ,” she replies. “Where the hell have you been? I’ve been worried sick about you for the past – oh, two years. Not consistently, of course, because being head nurse at Boston Mercury does occupy quite a lot of my time, which is something you’d know if you’d bothered to reply to any of my letters, but your radio silence has meant that every time I _do_ manage to get a quiet moment I have _at least_ one thing to fret over, which—“

“Ah, how I’ve missed your dulcet tones, Margaret,” Hawkeye says, feeling himself cheering up quickly under her onslaught. _This_ is exactly the kind of dressing-down he’s in the mood for. “I was calling to apologize, actually, about not having written or called earlier.”

“Well—well, good,” Margaret says. “But don’t think you can just apologize once and expect me to forgive you that easily.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t dream of it, Margaret. Although you’ll have to forgive me, religiously I _am_ obligated to try and get your forgiveness at least three times, ideally with witnesses, so if you could just get Charles on the phone… Actually, it might be good for me to apologize to him too, while I’m at it.”

“Are you _drunk_?” Margaret says.

Hawk laughs. “No, although I’d love to be.”

“So you’re just sober, going around calling up everyone you haven’t talked to in _years_ , asking for forgiveness like some sort of—of—“

“Well, it is almost Yom Kippur.”

“Well, you might’ve called last year as well, then. I don’t think this is a religious thing for you at all, Pierce, I think this is some sort of self-serving excuse for you to act like some sort of _martyr_ about the fact that you’ve neglected your very dear friendships for _years_. If you think I’m going to stand here berating you and playing into your guilt complex—“

“You’ve been doing a fine job so far, Margaret.”

“Well, I’m not going to.”

“Does that mean you forgive me?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Great, well, let’s get Charles on the phone and I can ask again in a few minutes.”

“Charles is _out_ right now, for your information.”

“Then I guess it’s just you and me, babe.”

“Oh, don’t even start with that.”

“But it’s part of my charm, Margaret.”

Margaret doesn’t deign to honor that last comment with reply, instead asking, “Just what the hell have you been up to, Pierce? No one’s heard from you since the war!”

“Yes, well, I had ‘Let My Trauma and Alcoholism Worsen to the Point of Being Put On Leave From My Job’ penciled into my schedule for the first few years after I got back and it was so hard to find time to do anything else,” Hawk tells her cheerfully.

“What, you—I mean, we all _drank_ , over there, but I never knew you to let it interfere with your job aside from—“

“Yes, well, when Beej and Charles and I divvied up the swamp, Charles got the chess set, Beej got all our old socks, and I got the alcoholism.”

“This isn’t funny, you know.”

“Ah, yes, Beej took my sense of humor with him too.”

“Look, I’m—speaking of B.J., just when was the last time you _talked_ to him? The man’s a wreck, you know, the least you could do is call him up. He’s always found your dark sense of humor much funnier than I have.”

“I talked to him just a few minutes ago, but I didn’t want to tie up his line.”

“You talked—well, that’s good.”

“He’s divorced now, you know.”

“I do know. Some of us actually keep in contact with our friends, you know.”

“I know,” Hawk says, and then he gets all sad, and quiet, and he says, “Margaret, I think I’ve fucked everything up in my life forever.”

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard you say, and I’ve heard you say a lot of stupid things.”

“Can’t you humor me for once? I’m sober, and I’m trying to wallow.”

“I don’t – are you still in Crabapple?”

“Yes, the one and only.”

“I’m coming up to see you.”

“I—what? When?”

“Let me see… Thursday. I can get away Thursday.”

“Thursday?! Margaret, can you even miss work on such short notice? How will the hospital function without you?”

“I’ll tell them I have a family emergency. They can re-arrange the schedule.”

“Margaret, you don’t have to drive all the way up here just because I’ve been feeling more sorry for myself than I should recently.”

“I should have driven up months ago, when we first got back. It’s only a three hour drive. I’m coming whether you like it or not, Pierce. You might as well give me your address because otherwise I will simply look up Crabapple on a map and then spend all day Thursday banging on your fellow townsmen’s doors until I find you. Crabapple Cove is small enough. I _will_ find you.”

With anyone else, Hawkeye might’ve been more embarrassed, or tried to argue, but he knows that Margaret means exactly what she said, and he doesn’t need “crazed woman knocking down doors in search of Hawkeye” added to the neighbor’s already ample fuel for gossip. “Fine,” he says, and gives her the address. “So I’ll see you Thursday, then, I guess.

“You will,” Margaret says.

“So,” Hawk says. “Can I ask one more time before I let you go: do you forgive me?”

“There was never anything to forgive,” she says. “But yes. See you soon, Pierce.”

“See you soon, Margaret,” Hawk says, and hangs up the phone, feeling something that, if it’s not joy, is close.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *I think 5713 would’ve been the year the incident with the mom & kid happened according to the Hebrew calendar, I’m kinda confused by the chronology of the show lol.
> 
> Thank you for reading! Comments and kudos are appreciated! I wanted to post these two at once because they're the most depressing lol. There is also lots of them being in love. Next chapter or two should be up sometime next week.
> 
> If you want to read the O'Hara poem that B.J. sends Hawkeye it's [here](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/26538/meditations-in-an-emergency).
> 
> And if you want to read Kafka's "The Hunger Artist" it's [here](https://www.kafka-online.info/a-hunger-artist.html) although MAJOR content warning for disordered eating throughout the whole piece.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to [horaetio](https://archiveofourown.org/users/horaetio/pseuds/horaetio) for beta reading this chapter for me!!! If you have not already read [her lovely Hawkeye/Trapper fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25491028), I cannot recommend it enough!

Margaret shows up at Hawkeye’s door at 12 p.m. Thursday. Hawk’s sitting out on the porch waiting for her, and the way they run at each other, people who didn’t know them better might’ve thought they were lovers reunited. They hug for a long time before Margaret pulls away and tells Hawk, “I’m still mad at you, you know.”

“I know,” Hawk tells her cheerfully, then helps her bring her bags inside, giving her a little tour of the place and introducing her to his dad, who likes her immediately.

“Why didn’t you bring this one home sooner?” he says to Hawkeye, winking at Margaret.

“Well, I would’ve, but she keeps marrying other people,” Hawkeye says.

“I see untoward behavior runs in the family,” Margaret says dryly, but then she smiles at Daniel.

It’s on the warmer side, so after the introductions Hawkeye and Margaret make their way back out onto the porch to sit on the steps and talk.

“So, Margaret, tell me everything. How’s married life?” Hawk says, putting his hand under his chin and looking at her like a schoolgirl.

“Don’t you think we should maybe address your drinking problem or something first?”

“Oh, but that’s no fun. Can’t that wait till later? How long are you here for? A few days at least, I hope.”

“I thought I’d go back Sunday,” Margaret says.

“See? We’ve got days and days. I think ‘addressing your drinking problem’ could be a great Saturday night activity. You just got here! Let’s have at least a little fun first!”

“Alright, fine,” Margaret says, rolling her eyes. “As long as having ‘fun’ doesn’t involve drinking.” It seems that, despite feeling it her duty to come check on her friend, she’s just as eager as him to avoid acknowledging, at least for a little while longer, that he might have a real problem.

“Only good, clean fun for us this weekend,” Hawkeye assures her. “So, married life. _Do_ tell. How’s that rascal Charles?”

“You know it’s just—I mean, you know it’s a _lavender_ marriage,” Margaret says quietly. Margaret had gotten incredibly drunk one night in Korea and confessed to Hawkeye that she was a lesbian, tears in her eyes, saying she understood if he reported her to Potter. Hawkeye had also been very drunk at the time, and he’d told her that if he turned her in, it would only be fair if he turned himself in too. Still, he’d never gone as far as to confess to Margaret that he was not _just_ gay but also in love with his best friend. Though they hadn’t spoken much about their shared proclivities after that night, they had always had a special, if mostly unspoken, understanding from then on.

“Just two gay Republicans making it work,” Hawkeye tells her now, so loudly that she shushes him even though absolutely no one else is around. He ignores her and continues, “It’s so crazy it almost makes sense. But, still, you live with the man, don’t you? How is he? As lovably insufferable as ever?”

“Much less insufferable than you,” Margaret says.

“Ouch, that hurts.”

“He’s been seeing this musician for a few months now. Concert pianist,” Margaret tells him, looking a little delighted to be able to talk about it openly with someone.

“Oh, God, does he lord it over everyone? _My_ boyfriend’s a _concert pianist_.”

“Sometimes,” Margaret says. “But I think overall it’s actually quite good for him. He’s dating someone who he’ll admit has skills that he doesn’t. They’re really a nice couple.”

“What about you? Do you have anyone?” Hawkeye asks.

“No,” Margaret says. “It’s hard to ever be sure, you know, who _is_ … well, you know. There are very few groups or bars or anything in Boston, and anyway, even if there were more, I’m not going to troll some _bar_ looking for a woman. I’d be liable to end up in bed with a socialist or union girl or something.”

“I don’t know, going to bed with a socialist sounds like a dream to me,” Hawkeye says. “Communist would be even better though. Too bad Crabapple Cove isn’t particularly rife with gay communists.”

“I’m going to ignore that comment,” Margaret says.

“So what do you do while Charles is out on the town with his concert pianist?”

“Well, I’ve got work, for one thing. I’m trying to actually make friends with my nurses, which feels like a full-time job in and of itself. Besides, it’s not like Charles is running around in public with his concert pianist all the time. We keep up appearances. He takes me out to nice dinners. We talk poetry. It’s not just _all_ a front. We do actually like each other, you know.”

“What a ringing endorsement. I hope someday to find someone that makes me as happy as you two make each other.”

“Hawkeye, we _do_ make each other happy. I know I can’t possibly expect someone like you to understand, since you’ve never had any respect for propriety in any area of your life, but there are certain _advantages_ to being married, and neither of us interferes with the other’s lifestyle, so I don’t see why you have to go around giving me such a hard time about it.”

“Margaret, Margaret, I’m not trying to criticize you. Really. If anything, I’m just a bitter old man who’s jealous that you seem to have found a situation that works so well for you.”

“I’d hardly call you old, Pierce. Bitter, maybe.”

“Too kind of you. But my posture says otherwise.” Hawkeye exaggerates his already lousy posture and says, “Ever seen anybody under the age of seventy hunch like this?”

“Oh, stop. Next thing I know you’ll be trying to get me to walk all over your back or something, and that’s certainly not what I came up here for.”

“Now that you bring it up, would you? It’s the only thing that seems to help.”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to find some other woman for that, Pierce.”

“Well, unfortunately for me, I’m not really interested in that many women.”

“Well, is there anyone you _are_ interested in?”

“No, and that’s all I’ll say on the matter. I’m putting a pre-emptive kibosh on that subject of discussion,” Hawkeye says.

“You don’t want to talk about your drinking problem and you don’t want to talk about your love life. What the hell did I rearrange work for, then? I didn’t come up here just to play checkers, you know.”

“We could always go make passionate love in my childhood bedroom.”

“I see the end of the war has made you no less disgusting.”

“How about fishing, then?”

“What?”

“How about we do a little fishing, since you drove all the way up here? The real Maine experience. They say fishing is better than sex,” Hawkeye tells Margaret.

“Who says that? No one says that. I don’t think you’ve had enough good sex in your life.”

“I’d have to agree with you on that,” Hawkeye says, giving her an overly-dramatized sad face. “Fishing is all I have, really.”

“Oh, fine, don’t look so pathetic. Yes, I’ll go fishing with you.”

***

Margaret follows Hawkeye around as he gathers the gear they’ll need. He tells her she can use his father’s fishing pole, then he makes his way into the kitchen. “We should take lunch,” he says, preparing sandwiches, finding two apples at the back of a refrigerator drawer. And grabbing a few beers.

“Oh, I don’t know—“ Margaret starts.

But Hawkeye cuts her off before she can even finish her sentence. “Oh, come on, if you don’t want to drink, I’ll end up doing it alone, and that’s a sign of alcoholism.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Margaret says crossly.

“It’s fishing, it’s a few beers. That’s just the American way, Margaret. You wouldn’t want to be accused of being un-American, now would you?”

“This is hardly what I would consider patriotic behavior.”

“Ah, well, later we can put on a John Philip Sousa record later, take off our hats, and put our hands over our hearts like they do at baseball games. Come on, the fish aren’t going to hang around forever.”

Margaret follows him out to the car. He’s got all their food in an actual picnic basket which he pulled out of the attic and dusted off. He puts the radio on and sort of half sings along, half runs his mouth off about any small thing that comes to mind. The man in front of her now seems like a wholly different person than the one who said into the phone, less than a week ago, _I think I’ve fucked everything up in my life forever_. As much as it’s nice to see him happy, it’s also disquieting. She remembers right before they left Korea, when he’d been at the sanitarium: even then, when they’d gotten him on the phone, he’d still tried to banter as if nothing were wrong. She knows it’ll be hard to make him say anything of substance to her about what’s been going on with him.

She really should have visited earlier. But the last time she’d seen him, when he’d come back from the sanitarium, he’d gone almost straight back to surgery. She’d hoped that was the end of it, that it meant everything was okay with him again. She should’ve known it wasn’t. But Margaret and Hawkeye are too alike; sometimes, they can cut right to the core of each other, but other times, their blind spots line up too well. They both like to pretend that nothing is bothering them. And if they _are_ forced to address problems head on, they like to think they can deal with them quickly then be done with them forever. She’s been busy making some kind of life for herself in Boston, and she’d assumed Hawkeye had been building one for himself here, not letting everything fall to pieces. She’d believed that because she had to. Even confronted by the fact of his phone call last week, she can’t resist the allure of his good mood today.

She doesn’t have long to dwell on any of this, though; it’s a quick drive to the bay. Once they get down onto the beach, Hawkeye shows her how to tie the feathers to her line, and Margaret tries to argue with him about technique even though she’s rarely, if ever, been fishing before in her life. She just can’t stand to let him be incontestably better at something than her. They’re just going for mackerels today, which are pretty easy to catch, although it’s a little late in the year, almost the end of the season. Hawkeye shows her how to throw the line and she proceeds to mess it up, almost hitting him in the face with it; he leaps out of the way just in time. Instead of apologizing, she snaps, “I don’t see why you were standing right in the way!”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” he replies. “I didn’t realize you’d reserved this section of the beach for wildly flailing around.”

“I won’t get it if you keep berating me!”

“I won’t be able to teach you if you take out my eye!”

After getting that out of their system, though, Margaret’s determination makes her a good student, and she and Hawkeye settle comfortably into fishing, which mostly involves a lot of standing on the beach, waiting and talking. Hawkeye gets a few fish, and then Margaret shrieks, “Oh! Oh, I think I feel something! I think there’s something on the end of my line! Is there something on the end of my line?”

“Don’t ask me, I’m not the one holding it! Reel it in! Reel it in!” After a bit more back and forth, Margaret does indeed manage to successfully reel in a mackerel.

“Oh, just look at it!” she says, trying to hold it up proudly while it nearly succeeds in wriggling out of her hands.

After they’ve been out for a few hours, Hawkeye cracks open a beer. Margaret decides not to say anything, not right this minute. When he offers her one, though, she says, “Oh, I don’t know.”

“Come on, Margaret, how many drinks did we have together during the war? I don’t see why having one now is suddenly so much worse.”

“I’ll have just one if you’ll also have just one,” she tells him, uncomfortable, not sure when or how to address his drinking.

“Alright,” he tells her, although he ends up having a few more later in the afternoon. “Just one more one more,” he keeps telling her, like it’s a joke. She doesn’t know quite what to say.

Somehow, they end up fishing right up until dusk. After the sun finally sets, they set their fishing poles down and sit together in the sand, looking out at the fading image of the water and not directly at each other. The sand still holds the glow of warmth from the sun earlier, although it’s starting to get cold enough to make Margaret glad she brought a jacket with her. Though she’s hungry again—they ate lunch hours ago now—she’s reluctant to suggest they return home. It’s that time of the day where it’s not truly dark yet but the color has faded from the world. Everything is just different shades of blue, and Margaret thinks that in the calm of the semi-darkness and afterglow of a long day of fishing, she just might get Hawkeye to talk more seriously about everything.

She doesn’t approach the problem straight away, though. Instead, all she says for the time being is, “It’s a pretty nice slice of the world that you live in, Hawkeye. If I didn’t think the hospital would cease to function without me, I’d almost be tempted to run away here myself.”

“The day Margaret Houlihan runs away from anything is a day I can’t imagine I’ll see,” Hawkeye says. “But you are happy, aren’t you? You don’t really want to run away from your life in Boston.”

Margaret thinks for a minute before she replies, it’s true. But then she says, truthfully, “No, I don’t really want to run away. I think… if there was something better I could run to, I might. But the kind of better that I want… I don’t think we live in a world that has it, at least not yet. Maybe one day.” She laughs at herself and adds, “I don’t know if that makes any sense.”

“No,” Hawkeye says, “I think it does. Sometimes it feels like a pretty raw deal we’ve been given.”

“I don’t know,” Margaret tells him. “I think I’m done regretting things like that, things about myself that I can’t change. Truth is, I don’t know if I’d want to. It would make a lot of things easier, sure, but I can’t help feeling it would change all these other parts of me, too, parts of me that I like.”

“But you said you don’t have anyone in Boston, right? No lucky lady?”

“No lucky lady,” Margaret says. “But I have Charles, and I have my friends.”

“But still you don’t regret it? I mean, just for me… but it’s hard not to feel like I’ve got all these things bottled up in me, and nothing to do with them, and what’s the point of it all, then.”

“What’s the point of it all,” Margaret repeats. She pauses for a minute, trying to gather what she needs in herself to say the kinds of things she usually doesn’t voice out loud. “The point of it, I think… You remember Lorraine? Used to come by the camp, sometimes? Old friend of mine?”

“Yeah, sure,” Hawkeye says.

“We knew each other when we were very young, just teenagers, kids. I think I was—“ she can’t bring herself to say _in love with her_ , so she settles for, “I think I felt _more than friendship_ for her, then, although I didn’t realize it at the time. But I remember one night… She wanted us to pierce each other’s ears. It wasn’t something I would’ve done with anyone else. But her excitement at the idea… it was infectious. I went along with it because I knew how happy it would make her. And making her happy made me happy. I still remember the feel of that needle in my ear. After it was done, I remember thinking now we had some proof of our—our friendship, or whatever it was, that we’d carry with us physically for the rest of our lives.” She pauses, then finishes, “And you know what? I let my ears close up. But still, I haven’t forgotten that night. I don’t think I’ve ever felt that exact way ever again as I did with her, when you’re a teenager and everything is sharp and you’re convinced it will last forever. I don’t regret it, even though we never quite got it back again, not in the same way. Even though it wasn’t as permanent as I thought at the time.”

Hawkeye sighs and doesn’t say anything for a minute, but Margaret can tell he was listening. Then he says, “I think I still feel that way.”

“Feel what way?”

“Like I did when I was a teenager. There’s this poem I read once… I can’t remember the whole thing, but there’s this line: _I have only two emotions / careful fear and dead devotion / I can’t seem to get the balance right._ * When I do fall in love, it’s still like a teenager, it’s that dead devotion that’s not good for you and that doesn’t go away even when you know it’s not good for you.”

“So there is someone, then,” Margaret says.

“There is someone.”

“Who is it, Hawk?” Margaret says softly, almost as if she thinks she can trick him into saying it as long as she doesn’t startle him with the question. But out of the corner of her eye, she sees as he only shakes his head.

“It doesn’t matter,” he says. “He doesn’t love me.”

“He doesn’t love you? He told you that?”

“He didn’t have to tell me that. He had a wife, and a kid, for almost as long as I’ve known him…” Hawk trails off, seeming to realize just how much he’s revealed. Maybe he meant to, almost.

Margaret looks at him sharply. “It’s him, isn’t?” she says. “It’s B.J.”

“Pretty much since the day I met him,” Hawk says miserably. It’s the first time he’s admitted it to anyone except himself.

For a minute, neither of them say anything. But once Margaret feels she’s given him the minute of sensitive silence he’s due, she says, “Well, I for one can’t accept that.”

“What? Can’t accept that I love him? Trust me, if I could get myself out of it, I would.”

“No. I can’t accept _this_.” She gestures to Hawkeye. “This _resignation_. How many times did you tell me in Korea that I’d find someone, that I deserved someone better?”

“I don’t know,” Hawkeye says evasively.

“A lot,” Margaret says. “You told me that a lot. So I can’t just sit here while my, my best friend tells me he’s resigned himself to a life devoid of love.”

“Well, that’s all very nice, but I don’t know what you want me to do about it. Even if I tell him how I feel, I can’t make him feel it back.”

“No,” Margaret says. “It’s true, you can’t. But it seems to me you’ve been avoiding the question entirely. That’s why you haven’t called, why you haven’t written, isn’t it? You’re afraid of reaching out and hearing something you don’t like.” She waits for an answer, but Hawkeye gives her none, so she continues, “Well, if you ask me, that’s a pretty cowardly thing to do, and you’ve hurt a lot of people, not just yourself, with this ongoing pity party.”

“Well, gee, if I knew all my friends were going to give me such a warm reception as this I would’ve reached out sooner.”

“Oh, shut up. I drove all the way up here for you. You call me for the first time in two years, and I rearrange my whole schedule so I can come see you at the drop of a hat, and this is the thanks I get?”

“I didn’t ask you to come up here!”

“No!” Margaret says. “But you should have! You should’ve asked me to come up here a long time ago. People aren’t going to stop caring about you, Pierce, just because you think it’d make things simpler for you. We’re going to keep caring about you whether you want us to or not, so the least you could do is make it a little easier on us.”

“I don’t know how to make it easy, Margaret. I don’t think I’m an easy person to love.”

“Oh, and I am?” Margaret says. When Hawkeye doesn’t reply, she persists, saying, “Am I an easy person to love? How many years did I snap at you every chance I got before letting you care about me even a little bit? But you kept trying, didn’t you? You didn’t walk away.”

“No,” Hawkeye says. “I guess I didn’t. Hard to walk away when there’s minefields and active combat zones on all sides of you.”

“And now I’m returning the favor. I’m not walking away. And I’m telling you to give others the same chance to do for you what you did for me. Not everybody’s going to like you, Hawkeye. Not everyone’s going to want to stick around. But some people will. You should start giving people the chance to make up their own minds about just how unbearable they think you are.”

“I don’t know if I can,” Hawkeye says quietly.

“What are you afraid of?” Margaret says. “Of losing him? It seems to me like you’re losing him this way too. At least if you tell him, you’ll know for sure. I can’t believe there’s only one person who could love you like that, who you could love in return. Maybe it’s B.J. But even if it’s not, at least if you tell him you’ll have a definitive answer. Maybe then you could actually start to move on. It seems to me like you’ve been doing just the opposite of that, these last two years, and you’ve been messing things up for yourself and for other people and, frankly, I think you need to take a long, hard look at yourself in the mirror and shape up.”

“Come on, Margaret, you try taking a look in the mirror with a face like this,” Hawkeye jokes, but she doesn’t reply, doesn’t let him avoid the conversation like she knows he’d like to.

Hawkeye can’t admit, all at once, that she’s right, that it’s maybe more selfish to shut everyone out than it is to let them care about him. But he can’t entirely dismiss what she’s saying either. If she’d taken any other approach, if she’d tried to comfort him, tell him he’s sure to find everlasting love, he could’ve written it off as pure flattery. But Margaret, in all their years of friendship, has never once flattered him. He may be bull-headed, but so is she, and when she gets like this about something and won’t back down, he knows she’s usually right. It wasn’t a conscious decision on her part, to lecture instead of trying to soothe him, but it’s precisely because of this approach that Hawkeye listens. Margaret tells him like it’s some kind of cross to bear, _I know it’s horrible, but sometimes we have to let people care about us_. And because they are so alike in this way, because they both find it almost unbearable to open up to people, she’s the only person he’ll listen to.

It’s hard for him to see, for himself, how other people might continue to care for him after he’s tried so hard to push them away. But she’s right, she did drive all the way up here even after years of not hearing from him. If she’s willing to do that, maybe, just maybe, his radio silence hasn’t been hurting just him but also B.J. Hawkeye can’t go as far as to imagine that the love he feels for B.J. might be reciprocated. But he does have to admit that they did share a tent, and a distillery, and bad jokes and bad food and bad days that they sometimes managed to turn around. Three years of friendship, and now B.J.’s gone and gotten himself a divorce and is probably sitting drinking alone in his apartment. Maybe Hawkeye needs to put his own feelings aside and go support the guy. Maybe they can drink and be miserable together again, and maybe somehow it’ll help him get some sort of closure, help the fact that they live on opposite coasts stops feeling like some sort of open wound all the time.

“I don’t know, Margaret,” Hawkeye says finally. “Maybe you’re right, just this once. _Maybe_.”

“I am,” she says, but then instead of pushing the point further, she reaches out and takes his hand, and he sort of leans into her a little, and they just sit there in silence like that for a good long while after the light fades and the stars come out.

***

They do eventually make it home, and Hawkeye makes up a bed for Margaret on the couch – he offers her his bed, but she tells him, “Oh, no, I have no idea what you’ve been up to in there” in such a disgusted tone that he truly can’t tell if she merely didn’t want to take his bed out of a sense of politeness or if she actually feels that way. In any case, she goes to sleep on the couch, and Hawkeye stays up a little later, making himself a martini—just one—and trying to pace around the kitchen as quietly as possible, thinking about what Margaret said. After a good hour or so of pacing, and after having drank _just one more_ martini, he decides to book himself a ticket to go see B.J. before he can chicken out.

He supposes he should maybe actually _call_ the man first, confirm that B.J.’s offer for Hawk to come stay with him was sincere, not just some throw-away nicity. But Hawkeye’s afraid that if he hears B.J.’s voice on the phone, he’ll end up back-peddling and not ask the question at all. No, the best option is definitely to buy an airplane ticket now, at 11 p.m. while he’s drunk, and trap his sober self into asking B.J. about it tomorrow or having to waste a not-insignificant amount of money.

So he does just that, taking the phone off the hook and calling up Pan Am. Late nights are the cheapest time to buy tickets anyway.

“Hello, thank you for calling Pan American World Airways. How can I help you?” the operator asks.

“Yes, I would like a ticket to San Francisco please,” Hawkeye says into the phone.

He half expects the operator to laugh at him or tell him that’s impossible, but the operator simply says, “Certainly. And where will you be flying from?”

“The Logan International Airport in Boston.”

“Yes, of course. What date?”

Hawkeye thinks. Margaret’s here for the weekend, so maybe he can get her to drive him down with her on Sunday. “What do you have on the second? October second?”

“I’ve got a flight going out at 6:00 am that day,” the operator tells him.

“No red eyes?” Hawkeye asks.

“Not to SFO, no. We just have morning flights out of Boston.”

“And how much is it?” Hawkeye says.

“$220.”

Two hundred and twenty dollars, leaving at 6 am. Well, if that’s all they have, he’ll take it, although he guesses Margaret won’t be driving him down. He pays for the ticket, scribbling down the details on a receipt that’s sitting near the phone, and the operator tells him where to pick up his ticket at the airport (they don’t want to mail it to him because it’s such short notice.) Then he hangs up the phone and, momentarily pleased with himself, goes upstairs to bed.

***

Early the next morning, Margaret wakes up on the living room couch and tip toes into the kitchen to find someone’s already brewed a pot of coffee and helped themselves. Glancing out the kitchen window, she sees Hawkeye sitting out on the porch with a mug in his hands. Pouring herself one, she goes out to join him.

“Do you always get up this early?” she asks him, sitting down next to him. It’s only about six a.m.

“I don’t tend to sleep that much. Nightmares.” He does indeed look on edge, and she wonders if it’s just nightmares that are troubling him.

“Still?” is all she asks.

“Yes, still. What are you doing up?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I’m always up this early,” she says. Margaret has always kept herself so busy that she guesses she’d probably be physically incapable now of sleeping in, even if she wanted to.

“I guess that shouldn’t surprise me,” Hawkeye says. “I don’t know why I thought you’d have slowed down after the war.”

“So since we talked about your love life yesterday, are you ready to talk about the other thing now?”

“What other thing?”

“Don’t be obtuse. That little drinking problem of yours.” She knows it’s early, but the way she figures it, now might be her best chance of getting him to talk about it, when he’s still tired and hasn’t quite worked his way through a cup of coffee yet. Maybe his defenses will be a little down. Plus, she’s afraid if she puts it off any longer, she won’t say anything at all.

“I don’t see what good talking about it is going to do,” Hawkeye tells her.

“Well not talking about it obviously hasn’t worked,” Margaret says. “Have you seen _anyone_ about it? Have you tried any sort of program?”

“What sort of program would I join? The only one where they don’t lock you up is Alcoholics Anonymous, and it’s much too Christian for my liking.”

“It worked for B.J.,” Margaret says.

“It worked for—wait, it worked for B.J.? Are you telling me _B.J._ joined AA?”

“I don’t see why you’re so surprised. The two of you drank like fish throughout the entire war. I think it’s admirable of him to admit that he had a problem and to deal with it.”

Hawkeye knows it’s ridiculous, but he can’t help feeling like this is some sort of betrayal on B.J.’s part. Back in Korea, they’d all drank more than they should have. Hawkeye had sort of assumed most people had kept it up, if maybe not quite on his own life-damaging levels. Hearing that B.J.’s quit drinking altogether, Hawkeye feels somehow like B.J. made the choice deliberately to leave Hawkeye behind. It hammers home to him, even more than hearing B.J.’s voice on the phone the other day, just how much time has passed since the war. Just how much might’ve changed. He finds himself regretting, even more than he did this morning, having bought a plane ticket to San Francisco.

“Yes, well, not all of us can be quite as admirable as B.J.,” Hawkeye says bitterly.

“Don’t give me that. You’re much too smart to be ruining your own life like this. You told me on the phone the other day that you got put on leave from your job because of your drinking. If you can admit that, I don’t see why you can’t do something about it.”

“Yes, well, it’s hard for me to stand up against myself when myself wants to drink as much as I do.”

“Oh, now you just sound like a lunatic.”

“It must be the drinking,” Hawkeye says, smiling at Margaret.

“I think you’re giving up before you’ve even tried. How do you know you’ll hate AA so much without even attending a meeting?”

“I told you, it’s Christian as hell, pardon my language. They’ve got you admitting you’re a sinner and surrendering to a higher power as soon as you’re in the door. They’ve based their ‘standard of morality’ on the Sermon on the Mount, for Christ’s sake.”

“I don’t see why that’s such a problem. You know, even if you’re not a Christian, it doesn’t mean everything in the Bible is worthless.”

“I’m not saying it’s worthless, I’m just saying it won’t work for _me_.”

“I should’ve known you’d be unreasonable about this.”

“Margaret, _you’re_ the one who’s being unreasonable about this. Look, I’m not telling you you have to stop believing in Jesus, I’m just asking you not to tell _me_ that I should. I don’t see how that’s unreasonable.”

“You’re being obstinate!” she says. “I think you’re just using the Christianity as a convenient excuse for having to face your problems head on. Your father’s Catholic, for God’s sake! I don’t see how you can be so averse to it.”

“My _father’s_ Catholic, Margaret. I’m not. I’m Jewish.”

“Half Jewish.”

“That’s not how it works,” Hawkeye tells her.

“What does that even mean?”

“Judaism follows matrilineal descent, so even by the most orthodox standards, I’m fully Jewish, although they’d definitely want to get me fully practicing. And still, even if I were just Jewish on my father’s side, I’d resent you telling me I’m ‘half Jewish.’ You don’t inherit Catholicism in the same way, plus that’s not what I believe. You only think the Christian stuff in AA is innocuous because it’s what you believe already.”

Hawkeye expects Margaret to keep arguing, and she almost looks like she’s about to, but then she takes a deep breath and says, “Okay, you’re right. I guess I don’t know that much about Judaism, and I shouldn’t have been trying to push your personal beliefs aside. I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry? Margaret, apologizing to me? Could you say that one more time so I can take a picture and have it framed?”

“Oh, stuff it, Pierce. I just want you to get some help, is all. If you don’t want to join a program, why don’t you come down to Boston and stay with Charles and me for a few weeks? We can keep a strictly alcohol-free household.”

“As much as trying to go off booze with Charles around sounds like an absolute dream, I’m going to have to decline. I’d sober up if it didn’t mean that then I’d have to give up drinking.”

“Why are you being so impossible about this?”

“Well, for one thing, I bought a plane ticket to San Francisco last night, so I don’t really have time to go down to Boston right now.” Hawkeye tries his best to say this as casually as possible.

“A _plane ticket_?” Margaret shrieks, nearly reaching out and slapping his shoulder for emphasis, although she manages to stop herself. “For _San Francisco_? For when?”

“Well, Sunday at 6 a.m.”

“ _This_ Sunday? As in, two days from now?”

“Yes.”

“Did you even talk to B.J. about this?” she says.

“Well, not yet. I was going to surprise him.”

“ _Surprise_ him?”

“Margaret, Margaret, that last part was a joke. I was going to call him this morning and check that it was all right.”

“And if he says no, what are you going to do?” she says indignantly.

“He invited me there last week, you know,” Hawkeye replies defensively. “Aren’t you the one just yesterday that was telling me I need to _reconnect_ with people and allow _them_ to decide how unbearable they think I am?”

“Yes, but, well, I didn’t think you’d run out and buy a plane ticket that same day!”

“What, so you just wanted me to confess my undying love to B.J. over _long distance_?” Hawkeye might have woken up this morning deeply regretful of his impulse purchase last night, but he finds that the more Margaret argues with him, the more he suddenly feels that his decision is not only defensible but the only logical one he could have made.

“Well, I don’t know! I just don’t know if it’s really smart for you to visit him when he’s newly sober, and you’re drinking more than ever before.”

“He’s not ‘newly sober.’ You told me he stopped drinking a year ago. And, anyway, it’s not like I’m going to be forcing alcohol down his throat.” Even as he says this, though, he _does_ worry about showing up at B.J.’s door with a drinking problem. B.J.’s sobriety is a complicating factor that he had not anticipated when he bought the plane ticket. As much as he feels somehow betrayed by B.J.’s sobriety, he doesn’t want to actually mess it up for him. But even looking at the problem sober himself at 6 a.m., he can’t make himself let go of the idea of seeing B.J. He wouldn’t have even allowed himself to consider the possibility before Margaret came up to see him, but having entertained the hope of it last night, he finds he can’t easily give it up. Two years of trying to stay away is a long time, and he’s not sure he’s strong enough to keep it up anymore. He’s never been good at abstaining from things he likes; just look at his drinking habits.

“A year is a short time in terms of sobriety,” Margaret says, cutting into his thoughts. “And if anything is going to get him to start drinking again, it’ll be you.”

“I could quit.”

“I—“ Margaret stops for a second, apparently having anticipated a different response and thus having had a different rebuttal ready. “Well that would be good for everyone involved, but you just told me you _couldn’t_ quit cold turkey!”

“Well, for him I could,” Hawkeye says. Even as he says this, he’s not sure it’s true. He _wants_ it to be true. He wants Margaret to tell him he could.

But she doesn’t. She suddenly takes the other side, telling him, “That’s a lovely sentiment, Pierce, but I’m not sure it’ll hold up.”

“Of course you’re conceding the nuances of addiction only when it’s _not_ in my favor,” Hawkeye tells her.

“I just think maybe you’re jumping the gun on this.”

“When I didn’t say anything to him the whole time we were sleeping a few feet apart every night, was that jumping the gun? When I didn’t write back to him for two years, was that jumping the gun? I’ve already let so much time go by.” He tries to sound indignant as he says this, but his anxiety slips through the cracks in his ire and Margaret gives him a sympathetic look, which is worse than her yelling back at him. “I—Look, just let me call him, all right? I can—I can try and get sober this weekend, but if that doesn’t work I can—I’ll drink little airplane bottles of booze in the bathroom the whole time I’m there, hide my drinking like some kind of real alcoholic. I’m not going to drag him down to my level, Margaret, I just want to see the man.”

Margaret has to admit that two years of isolating himself from all his friends probably played no small part in exacerbating Hawkeye’s drinking habits. She’s torn between wanting to protect B.J. and wanting to help Hawkeye. But she wants to trust them both, to trust that Hawkeye will, at the very least, keep his drinking out of sight of B.J., and to trust that B.J. won’t start drinking again. Which, maybe that’s stupid. But she’s also comforted B.J. more than once on the phone about Hawkeye not writing or calling any of them back. She’s now seen both sides of what being apart has done to each man, and as much as Hawkeye seems convinced his feelings aren’t reciprocated, she’s not so sure. It might be good for both of them to see each other, and besides, she’s been working on things like _Giving up control sometimes_ and _Letting other people make their own decisions_.

So she takes a deep breath, sighs, and tells Hawkeye, “Alright, yes, why don’t you call him and see what he says.”

“Well, now that I have your endorsement,” Hawkeye says sarcastically and stands up. The thought of calling B.J. makes his hands shake, makes him want a drink, but it’s 6 a.m. and even he hasn’t gotten that bad yet. Besides, he tells himself that he really _is_ going to get off of booze this weekend.

“Wait!” Margaret says.

“What is it now? Do you need to straighten my tie or something?”

“Well, no, I just thought I’d point out that it’s three a.m. in California. Go ahead and call him, though, if you’d like,” she says, sounding annoyed.

Hawkeye sits back down sheepishly. “Time zones,” he says, then there’s a pause. Then, attempting to lighten the mood in a way that only he would, Hawkeye says, “So, anything else you want to lecture me about, or can I just drink my coffee in peace?”

“No,” Margaret says. “I think I’m all lectured out.” She gets the feeling she’s said all she can say as far as his drinking goes. She’s watched other people, like Helen, go through this before. She knows there’s only so much she can say that will change things, so she doesn’t want to belabor the point. He knows she’s here for him. He knows he can stay with her if he needs to. That’s all that really matters.

“You know, if you’re all done talking, I can think of something else we might do with our lips,” Hawkeye says.

Margaret just gives him a look. “You know, your sad attempts at flirting are even more ridiculous now that you’ve just confessed your undying love for B.J. to me.”

“Ah, but I’ll always burn a candle for you, Margaret,” Hawkeye says.

“And I’ll always snuff it out. Come on, finish your coffee. I’d like to sit in silence for at least a moment. Something tells me with you around, this is the only moment of peace and quiet I’ll get.”

“But you wouldn’t have it any other way, would you?”

She smiles ruefully at him. “Not usually, no.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *This is actually a lyric from “Don’t Swallow the Cap” by the National from 2013. I’ve mostly tried to keep my references within the time frame of the story but you’ll have to pardon this anachronism because it’s such a Hawkeye song.
> 
> Next chapter: B.J. and Hawkeye actually talk to each other in person!! Did not think it would take four chapters to get there. I may be accidentally writing a slow burn.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again to [horaetio](https://archiveofourown.org/users/horaetio/pseuds/horaetio) for beta reading & appreciating my joke about the Unitarians, and also credit to my mother the developmental psychologist for letting me ask her 1 million questions about 4 year olds and also for telling me almost unprompted, “B.J.? He definitely drives a Volkswagen bug.” She is right.
> 
> **CW: homophobic slurs at the end of the paragraph that starts, “B.J. grew up in this city.”**
> 
> Also I lied last week, this chapter got out of hand, so B.J. & Hawkeye don't actually talk in person till NEXT chapter but like. They actually really do next chapter. Hawkeye arriving in San Francisco coming soon to theaters near you. In the meantime, hope you enjoy this one!

B.J. gets a call from Hawkeye, first one since Korea, and it lasts maybe two minutes. B.J. tells Hawkeye he’s divorced, Hawkeye says he’s been put on leave from his job, B.J. invites Hawk to come visit him, and then Hawkeye rushes off the phone after promising to write. The fact that Hawkeye was calling because Rosh Hashanah was coming up – B.J. can’t help but wonder if Hawk sees him as some kind of religious _obligation_ , some lingering guilt from the war and nothing more. The call almost hurts worse than not hearing anything at all.

Almost. Despite himself, B.J. can’t help but be grateful that he happened to have Friday off this week, that he was there to pick up the phone. As brief as the call was, as much as he still doesn’t know about what’s been going on with Hawk, or why he hasn’t called till now, or if he’ll ever call again – B.J. is willing to take all that uncertainty, and the pain of hearing Hawk rush off the phone, in return for getting to hear his voice. His voice, some small proof that he still exists as something other than memory, some slim hope for some kind of future. B.J. can’t let himself imagine it’ll be the one he wants so desperately, but maybe Hawkeye will call again in a year or two, maybe he’ll actually write, maybe they’ll get to see each other five years down the line.

He’s grateful for the call and torn up about it all at once. It’s always everything all at once when it comes to Hawkeye. He can’t stop running back through everything Hawkeye said, particularly, _I got your letters. All of them. But also the poem._ It was the poem that got Hawk to call. But why the poem? Why hadn’t he said anything more about it? Why had he rushed off the line? 

B.J. can feel himself wanting to drink, but he fights the urge, picking up the phone and trying to call Margaret instead. Unfortunately, he finds her line busy. _Damn it._ He almost considers calling Peggy—he knows she won’t mind, especially if she knows he’s trying to stay sober—but there’s too much about the situation that he wouldn’t be able to explain to her. At least with Margaret, she knows something closer to the truth—how close he and Hawk were, how it hurts not to hear from him—even if she doesn’t know that B.J. wishes they’d been even closer. Dancing around all that with Peg would only make him feel worse.

Instead, he makes his way down to his garage. His neighbors use their side of it for their sedan, but B.J. uses his side for the various bikes he’s working on. He lives on a dead-end street against the presidio, which means finding street parking for his Volkswagen bug is easy enough. If it were just him, he’d have only his bikes, but he’s not taking his four-year-old daughter around on one of them. 

As he enters the garage, its familiar smell envelops him—motor oil and a bit of must—and he begins to feel a bit more at ease. He sets to work on his current project—a 1942 Harley—and is soon able to _almost_ forget about Hawkeye’s call. Getting lost in the intricacies of an engine, in figuring out how to solve one small mechanical problem after another, distracts him enough that the pain of the phone call hums just in the background of his every thought instead of consuming him fully. It’s better than nothing. He doesn’t have Erin this week—he’s picking her up from Peggy Sunday evening—so before he’s realized it, it’s 5 pm, and he hasn’t eaten lunch.

He goes upstairs and gets cleaned up, then makes himself possibly the biggest turkey sandwich he’s ever eaten in his life, on sourdough of course. Two and a half years after the war, and B.J. still can’t get enough sourdough. As he eats it alone in his kitchen, he contemplates trying Margaret again, but after the initial upset of the phone call, he realizes he’d rather _not_ talk about it with anyone. Even with Margaret, he couldn’t explain the poem, couldn’t tell her what it really meant when he told Hawk, _Come stay with me._ So instead, he calls no one, and he goes back down to the garage, where he stays until he almost falls asleep right there working on his bike.

The rest of his weekend passes much the same way. He tries to distract himself, only somewhat succeeding. At least he keeps himself from drinking. He works on his bikes, but he’s got another project he’s working on, too. After he got back from the war, he picked up embroidery. He likes that it’s similar to knitting, something to do with his hands, but that it doesn’t have a _purpose._ It’s meant to be beautiful, not useful. He puts on old records – Glenn Miller, the Andrew Sisters, Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, the Ink Spots – and works on this jean jacket he’s embroidering for Hawkeye.

He’s going to cover the whole thing in vines and flowers, living things, all done in red or pink thread. He knows it’s ridiculous, that he’s barely heard from Hawk since the war, so the chances of seeing him in person are slim to none. But if he does, through some miracle, see Hawkeye again—well, B.J.’s never been very good at expressing himself. Just look at the letters he’s been sending Hawkeye—the one that finally got Hawkeye to call was the one B.J. didn’t write himself. It was the poem by O’Hara. So this is his insurance, his way to give Hawkeye some proof: _I’ve been thinking about you this whole time, see? I’ve been making something for you. I want you to have it._

He does go out a bit that weekend, walking down to some little shop on Clement to pick up a cup of coffee, then walking along looking in the windows of the flower stores. He doesn’t go in, though; he doesn’t have anyone to buy flowers for. Aside from this brief excursion, he spends most of the weekend in his apartment or in his garage. He tends to feel uncomfortable in public. Not just this weekend, but ever since he got back from the war. And he guesses that part of it probably _is_ the war, the classic case of the veteran unable to ease back into civilian life, but it’s not _just_ that.

B.J. grew up in this city. He’d never questioned where he belonged. But now, now that he’s been away, now that he’s come to the realization that he’s _gay_ – he can’t help worrying, every time he goes out in public, that something is going to give him away. That some stranger will see it in him, in the way he walks, something in his voice, that this stranger will confront him as they stand in line waiting for coffee, a bagel. _Hey, this guy’s trying to pretend he’s just like the rest of us, but he’s queer, a f*g. Get the fuck away from me._

B.J. knows he could go over to North Beach, up his chances of being among people like him, but he’s almost as scared of being _recognized_ by the community there as by anyone else, although for different reasons. Because he wouldn’t fit in there, either. He doesn’t know the slang, how to dress, where to go. He isn’t straight enough for most of the world, but he fears not being gay enough for those who live more openly either. He feels out of place whenever he’s around people now, so mostly he tries to avoid having to be. 

So for most of the weekend, he keeps to himself. Finally, though, Sunday afternoon rolls around, and he knows he needs to get himself into a better headspace. He’s picking up Erin this evening. After missing two years of her life, he wants to be present every moment that he’s with her. Each week that she’s with Peggy, he misses her as fiercely as he did when he was all the way in Korea. He’s always worried he’s going to miss something, and it’s all he can do to stop himself from calling Peggy up every night to ask how Erin is: what she ate for the day, what she said, if she wore her hair in pigtails or down.

He thinks Peggy must know how he feels—probably she feels the same way during his weeks with Erin—because she’ll often invite him over for dinner at least once during weeks that it’s her turn with Erin. He tries to return the favor, although he rarely invites her over – their formerly-shared home doesn’t necessarily seem like the best place for all of them to spend time together anymore. Instead, they’ll often take Erin to J.K.** The playground is far enough away from the actual military facilities of the presidio that it just feels like another neighborhood park, plus Erin’s obsessed with the monkey bars there. Sometimes, though, they’ll take her over to North Beach because that playground has a sandbox and they can get gelato, too.

All this to say that, on Sunday afternoon, he realizes he’s got to get himself together for Erin’s sake. So he drives over to Land’s End, the state park with the paths along the seaside cliffs, where there’s a great view of the golden gate when the fog isn’t too bad. He parks next to Louis’, above what used to be the Sutro baths but which is now an ice skating rink. Soon, he’s on the path among the Cypress trees, but instead of walking too far along it, he takes the first set of stairs down the cliff side and to the beach.

Even though it’s September, and the ocean in Northern California is hardly warm even in summer, he takes his shoes off and wades into the water just up to his ankles. The roar of the wind nearly matches that of the water, and B.J. shivers, but this has always been his refuge. It’s not that being here washes away all his anxieties. In a way, it makes his emotions sharper, bigger; but at the same time, makes him feel smaller, the intensity of everything he’s feeling outmatched by the crash of the waves, the whole of his being swept through by the wind. It’s not a feeling he’s ever really been able to explain to anybody. He stands there for longer than he should, even after his feet grow numb, just looking out at the water. Finally, he makes his way back up the cliff, and then he walks until it’s not just his feet that are numb but all of him. Then it’s time to pick up Erin.

Sometimes, when he goes to get Erin, she’s too caught up in some game or drawing to notice him. Even worse, she often throws huge temper tantrums when it comes time to leave Peg’s house. B.J. tries not to let it get to him. Peggy tells him it’s natural, that it’s just Erin having to get used to yet another new schedule, that transition periods are hard for young children. But it doesn’t help. It’s always a sharp pain, an ache that doesn’t ease with time. Each tantrum is a reminder of everything the war is still costing him. Every time, he half expects somebody from the courts to walk in and tell him he’s an unfit father, that they’re taking Erin away from him after all. It’s practically unheard of for a father to get joint custody – Peggy and B.J. were lucky enough to find a judge that’s involved with the new “family court” movement, and B.J. of course had Peg on his side. And it _still_ took some convincing.

Unfortunately, tonight is no different. Erin is happy coloring in the living room with Cynthia and Annie (Cynthia’s daughter) when B.J. first arrives. After his time at the beach, he feels better than he has all weekend, but that isn’t to say that he feels great. Something in his face must betray him, because Peggy stops him and asks if he’s doing alright. Again, he almost wants to tell her about the call, about Hawkeye. He almost wants to confess all of it, right there in the kitchen: that he’s gay, that he’s in love with Hawkeye, that Hawkeye doesn’t love him back. But something in him still holds back. So instead, he just smiles in what he hopes is a convincing manner and says, “I’m fine, Peg. Really.”

She sort of side-eyes him, but she leads him into the living room, filling him in on some of what Erin’s week has been like: she’s decided that she doesn’t like chicken anymore, but she will eat peas now, and she has to sleep with the stuffed cat now, not the bear. Once he’s all filled in, B.J. kneels down next to Erin. “That’s a great drawing!” he says. “Can you tell me about it?”

She points to the page. “This is a princess.” Indeed, he can see pink for the dress and an orange crown on her head. Then, Erin points at a yellow and black blur with huge teeth. “And this is her tiger.”

“Oh, her tiger?” B.J. says. “Did she catch it herself?”

“No, daddy! She didn’t catch it. The tiger is her _friend._ ” Every time she calls him daddy, B.J. still feels as thrilled as the first time it happened. He wants to stay here on the floor with her forever, watching her color, but he knows it’s impossible.

So instead, with a bit of dread already forming in the pit of his stomach, he says, “Honey, how about we pack up your drawing and go back to daddy’s house?”

The tears are almost immediate. Peggy ends up having to go down onto the street with him as he gets a still-crying Erin into the car because he’s legitimately worried people will think he’s abducting a child. Peggy gives him one more reassuring look and says to call if there’s any problems, and then he begins the drive back home.

The radio sometimes calms Erin down, so he puts that on, only to find that “Ain’t That A Shame” is playing. _You made me cry when you said goodbye / Ain’t that a shame, my tears fell like rain / You’re the one to blame,_ Pat Boone* sings, and B.J. almost turns the radio right back off again. He hadn’t cried, when he’d said goodbye to Hawkeye. He’d come close, but he hadn’t let himself. He’d been afraid that if he started to cry, he wouldn’t be able to stop himself, that a confession of his feelings would have followed the tears. And there hadn’t been time for that. There hadn’t been words. But maybe if he’d let himself cry—maybe if he’d left a note—maybe… _I’m the one to blame,_ B.J. thinks, but he lets the song play on.

Erin’s still crying when they get home, but it seems less impassioned now and more almost out of habit. He carries her up the stairs and into the apartment. He and Peggy have figured out that if Erin eats at Peggy’s, but has her bath at B.J.’s, that calms her down quickest, so he runs the bath almost as soon as they’re in the door. Sure enough, once he gets her in it, she calms down, and by the end of it he’s got her driving around the little plastic boats with him and making up stories about pirates.

B.J. still worries about things like getting shampoo in Erin’s eyes and making her cry, even after two years of being home. He always has Peggy cut her nails because once he accidentally cut her and she began to bleed, and the sight of it was almost worse than anything he’d seen on the operating table. Every time she cries, he worries he’s done something wrong, even though he knows all four-year-olds cry. So he’s grateful that the rest of the night passes without more tears. He tucks her in and reads her _Winnie the Pooh._ He turns on her moon-shaped night light and leaves the door open a crack, just like she likes it. After he’s sure she’s asleep, he goes back and stands in the doorway for a minute, just watching her breath.

For a moment, he feels he has been blessed with everything that is good in the world.

***

By Friday, B.J.’s just about managed to get Hawkeye to the back of his mind, so of course that’s when Hawkeye calls again. B.J. learns this when he gets home from the office, and his housekeeper, Wendy, tells him, “Some man with an odd name called for you this afternoon.” ***

“What? Who?” B.J. asks. He doesn’t get many calls these days. _An odd name._ His mind immediately goes to Hawkeye, even as he tells himself that can’t be it.

“I can’t remember,” Wendy says. “But I left a note on the kitchen counter.”

“Okay, thank you,” B.J. says. He says hello to Erin and goodbye to Wendy, then goes into the kitchen, Erin in his arms. He almost doesn’t believe the note. All it says is, _Hawkeye called_ , and then it lists his number, as if Hawkeye was worried that B.J. would have forgotten it, would have thrown out the scrap of paper that he keeps in his wallet with that exact information on it. He glances at his watch. It’s 5:30 pm now, and he needs to feed Erin by 6 or she’ll get fussy, but he also needs to call Hawkeye soon, or it’ll get too late on the East Coast, and then he’ll have to wait to call until tomorrow. And he’s worried the call means something bad. Hawk’s dad is in the hospital. Something.

He sets a phone book on top of one of the yellow director-style chairs he’s got around the kitchen table and sets Erin on top of it, giving her some paper and crayons. “Daddy has to make a quick phone call, okay?” he tells her. He sets water to boil on the stove and grabs the phone, grateful that it’s in the kitchen. He dials Hawkeye’s number, feeling faint and nauseous, a lovely combination. After about six agonizing rings, someone picks up. It’s Daniel, which at least means he’s all right. “Uh, hi, it’s B.J.,” B.J. says into the phone. “I think Hawkeye called me earlier today?”

B.J. half expects Daniel to tell him he has no idea what he’s talking about. Instead, Daniel says kindly, “B.J.! Long time no talk. One minute.” B.J. hears Daniel call Hawkeye’s name, and a minute later, he hears Hawkeye’s voice for the second time in more than two years.

“Hi, Beej,” Hawkeye says, in a tone that’s much too casual. B.J. can immediately tell that he was right, that something _is_ up.

But he knows freaking out about it won’t help, so instead he replies, equally casually, “Hi, Hawk. Too lazy to make good on your promise to write, so you thought you’d call instead?”

Hawkeye laughs a little at this, and then he says, “I thought I’d do you one better, actually.”

“Oh yeah?” B.J. says, smiling into the phone, caught up in Hawk’s charm even as he remains on edge.

“Yeah, well…” There’s a long pause, then, but B.J. holds himself back from saying anything. Hawkeye eventually says, “Remember when you told me I could come visit?”

“Yeah,” B.J. says, still not letting himself hope.

“Well… how would you feel if I really took you up on that?”

 _Like a million dollars. Like the luckiest guy in the world. Terrified. Overjoyed. I’d feel something I can’t put into words. I’d give you the jacket I’ve been embroidering and hope that was enough._ “I’d be—I mean that, that would be great, Hawk! When were you thinking?”

Hawkeye laughs, almost in relief it sounds like. Then he says, “Well, how would you feel about Sunday? As in, this Sunday? As in, two days from now?”

“S—Sunday?” B.J. says, taken aback, but then quickly scrambles to assure Hawkeye that he’s welcome, worried about accidentally dissuading him. “Sunday is fine!” He’ll figure out the details later.

“Are you sure?” Hawkeye says into the phone. “I feel—Margaret told me you’re sober now.”

“Margaret told you that?” B.J. says. He wonders when Margaret talked to Hawk. Whenever she and B.J. have been on the phone, she’s never made any mention of having talked to Hawkeye. B.J. feels a flash of betrayal, a worry that Hawk has been talking to everyone but him since the war, that there’s some reason he doesn’t want to talk to B.J., that he’s been telling everyone about it, asking them to keep it just between them.

“Yeah she—she came up to visit this week. I called her after I called you. Told her about—well, my drinking hasn’t gotten better since the war.”

“I don’t—I mean, I’m not going to sit here and moralize at you. I don’t care.”

“I just—I don’t want to mess things up for you.”

“You’re not going to mess things up for me, Hawk,” B.J. says. “I can take care of myself.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, of course I’m sure. Only—what time would you be getting in? Peggy’s taking Erin next week, and I usually drop her off around 5 on Sundays, but I could rearrange—“

“No, no, I can get myself to your house. Don’t rearrange your time with Erin.”

“Are you sure?” B.J. says. As much as he _doesn’t_ want to miss any time with Erin, he also wants to pick Hawkeye up at the airport. What he _really_ wants is to take Erin with him, and for Hawkeye to love Erin, and for Erin to love Hawkeye, and for B.J. to suddenly get his family back. But he knows that would all be too simple.

“I’m sure, B.J., just give me your address,” Hawkeye says, laughing a bit, as though in disbelief.

B.J. knows that _he_ certainly can’t believe this is happening. He tells Hawk his address, then asks how long Hawk’s going to stay.

“Oh, well—I mean, I’m kind of flying by the seat of my pants here, and with being on leave from work—well, I just thought I might buy my return ticket after I get there. Just see, you know?”

“Sure, sure, that’s fine,” B.J. says. “This is crazy. Are you really—I mean, you’re really flying out here? This weekend?”

“Sounds like it,” Hawkeye says. Then he adds, “Hey, I’d love to run up my phone bill, but there’s someone here who’ll kill me if I don’t let her talk to you. I’ll see you Sunday evening, sometime after five, right?”

“Right!” B.J. says, and then he waits for a minute, hears some shuffling.

Suddenly, he hears Margaret’s voice say, “B.J.?”

“Margaret!” he says.

“B.J.! How are you? I hear Hawkeye’s going to come visit you.”

“Yes! You know, I’m good, the same as I’ve been. Glad to have Hawkeye coming. How is he?”

“Oh, you know, in some ways, the same as he’s always been. I hope it’ll be good for him to see you.”

“I—I know it’ll be good for me to see him,” B.J. says.

“That’s good,” Margaret says. “So you’re excited, then?”

“Yes, of course! Why wouldn’t I be?”

“No, of course, I only meant—well, I don’t want to cost the Pierces a fortune, I’d better let you go. I’ll call you in a week or so, okay?”

“Sure, Margaret,” B.J. says easily. Somehow, things are always easy for B.J. when it comes to Margaret. She and Hawk are so similar. He knows how to read her, when to humor her and when to push back. But there’s none of the charge of his relationship with Hawkeye, the complication of his own unexpressed feelings. He’s happy to hear her voice now, even for just a moment.

“I just meant—well, take care of yourself, okay?” Margaret says. It could be just another line to get herself off the phone if it weren’t for the tone with which she says it.

“I will, Margaret,” B.J. says softly in reply. Suddenly, the distance between them is almost too much. But Hawkeye is coming. As he hears the click of the receiver, and turns back to the pot of water on the stove, and smiles at his daughter, he reminds himself that Hawkeye is coming. The fear and joy of it bubble up in him all at once, threatening to boil over.

***

As soon as Hawkeye finalizes his plans with B.J., Margaret tells him they can drive back down to Boston together on Saturday night, and she’ll drive him to the airport early Sunday. “It’ll be fun,” Margaret says. “We can have dinner with Charles.”

“If you’re trying to win me over to the idea, you need to choose a different tactic,” Hawkeye tells her.

“I’m _offering_ to do something _nice_ for you,” Margaret says. “Say, ‘Yes, Margaret, that would be lovely.’”

“Yes, Margaret, that would be lovely,” Hawkeye parrots. He spends the rest of Friday and Saturday half out of his mind. He does his best not to drink and succeeds for a day and a half, only to break down Saturday afternoon and have _just one beer_ and then _just another_ until he’s had four, which isn’t as bad as it could be. Margaret and Hawkeye spend half of the weekend driving each other up the wall and half the time being their version of best friends, which would _also_ look like driving each other up the wall to the outside eye. Finally, it’s time to drive down to the city. Margaret puts her bag in the car and gets in the driver’s side, sitting there in the driveway with her head hanging out the window waiting for Hawkeye. Just as Hawkeye is about to follow her out the door, Daniel stops him.

“So, you’re going to go stay with your friend, and you don’t know when you’ll be back, huh?” Daniel says.

“Yeah,” Hawkeye says. “I’ll probably only be gone a week or two, though.”

“Why do I feel like it’s going to be a long time before I see you next?”

“Oh, you’re just being hopeful about having me out of your hair,” Hawkeye says.

“I hope this’ll be good for you,” Daniel says. “I hope he’ll be good for you.”

Hawkeye feels an unexpected lump in his throat at this, and he wonders how much his dad knows, and if he’s trying to give Hawkeye his blessing, but as much as Hawkeye wants to ask, or say something more, all he can get out is, “I hope so too.”

“And you better not pull some shit and not take _my_ calls,” Daniel says. “I want to know that you’re alright.”

“I’m always alright,” Hawkeye says, “But I’ll take your calls.”

“I have the number,” Daniel says, and though he says it fondly, it cuts Hawkeye to the quick, that reminder of all those times he wouldn’t answer the phone. Daniel continues, “B.J. always seemed like a nice guy. Don’t be too hard on him. Don’t be too hard on yourself, either.”

“I’ve gotta go, dad,” Hawkeye says. As he’s about to leave, though, Daniel pulls him in for a hug.

“Take care of yourself,” Daniel says.

“I will,” Hawkeye says, and then he succeeds in making it out the door. Despite how choked-up the conversation with his dad made him feel, he can’t help smiling at Margaret, sitting their impatiently in his driveway with her car idling. He lets himself imagine, just for a second, that it’s ’35 and they’re friends bonded by nothing more traumatic than their daily high school experience, that they’re taking some aimless road trip and nothing more.

Hawkeye throws his bag in the back and hops into the passenger seat. As Margaret pulls the car out of the driveway, he gazes at her fondly. “What are you looking at?” she snaps once she’s got the car headed down the road.

“I’m really gonna miss you, Margaret,” Hawkeye says. “Is that stupid?”

“Of course it’s stupid. You don’t call for two years and _now_ you say you’re going to miss me?”

“I just feel bad, is all. I feel like I wasted half the visit driving myself up the wall about B.J.”

“Well, I can’t say it was that much different than when we were in Korea. Besides, save your guilt. I live three hours away from you, B.J. lives 3,000 miles away. I’ll have plenty of time to make you feel guilty once you get back.”

As they make their way down I-95, Hawkeye fiddles with Margaret’s radio, much to her annoyance. “Ain’t That A Shame” comes on. _You made me cry when you said goodbye / Ain’t that a shame, my tears fell like rain / You’re the one to blame,_ Pat Boone sings. Hawkeye’s never been able to understand the song, the sentiment of blaming someone else for leaving. He’s only ever been able to blame himself. But Pat Boone’s odd delivery of the lines and the upbeat tempo, combined with the fact of Margaret there in the car with him, allows Hawkeye not to dwell on the song for long.

In fact, as they start out down the road, he feels almost giddy. Back in Korea he couldn’t do this. He couldn’t just get in a car with his friend and drive somewhere, anywhere. He rolls the window down, and Margaret tells him to roll it up, and he turns the radio up, and she tells him to turn it down, and then they start to argue about how much Hawkeye owes Margaret from the card game last night, but it’s the fun kind of arguing that they both enjoy. It settles them both down into the drive, and it’s smooth sailing until they hit traffic getting into the city. Witnessing Margaret’s road rage almost makes the traffic worth it, though. Eventually, they make it to Margaret’s house.

Hawkeye has to admit it’s a nice house. A red brick, two-story building on the south slope of Beacon Hill. It even has a little backyard. Hawkeye whistles as they’re pulling up. “What?” Margaret says.

“Nice neighborhood, is all.”

“I told you marriage has its advantages,” Margaret says.

“Maybe I ought to ditch the B.J. plan and try to marry rich myself,” Hawkeye says.

“Oh, stop,” Margaret says. “Although I think at times you’d almost fit in here better than me. There are so many Unitarians running around here getting up to all sorts of nonsense to the point where they’re barely even Christians anymore.”

“Hey, as someone who’s certainly not Christian myself…”

“Oh, if you’re Jewish that’s one thing, but if you’re going to call yourself Christian, and then run around debating Jesus’ divinity…”

“Let’s save this theological discussion for another time, shall we?” Hawkeye says as Margaret parks. “Preferably after I’ve had a few drinks.”

“You already had four beers this afternoon,” Margaret says.

“Well, let’s wait till I’ve had four more, then.”

“I thought you were trying not to drink.”

“I promise not to drink if you promise not to bring up Jesus again.”

“Fine,” Margaret says. They grab their bags and make their way up the stairs, where not just Charles but also a little Jack Russell Terrier greets them. It runs straight at Margaret, and she kneels down in the entranceway, dropping her bags on the ground and scooping the dog into her arms. “Oh, hello, yes, I missed you too!” she says to the dog, smiling as wide as Hawkeye’s ever seen her smile as it licks her face.

“I’ll get the bags, shall I?” Charles says dryly, having to awkwardly maneuver around Margaret to grab them, as she’s blocking most of the doorway. Hawkeye steps less-than-gracefully around her as well and follows Charles inside, dropping his bags on the floor.

“Nice place you’ve got here,” Hawkeye says.

“Hmm? Yes, I suppose it would seem impressive to someone of your ilk,” Charles says.

“Glad to see you haven’t changed a bit, Charles.”

At this point, Margaret follows them inside, closing the door behind her. She’s still got the dog in her arms. “This is Starbuck,” she tells Hawkeye, showing him off proudly.

“He’s very sweet,” Hawkeye says. “May I?” When Margaret nods, he reaches out and takes the dog, scratching the dog’s head as Starbuck tries to lick his face. Margaret gives him a tour of the place and Charles follows, trying to look disinterested but continually interjecting whenever Margaret gets the date for a specific painting wrong or forgets to point out that a certain chair is an _antique_. At one point, Hawkeye accidentally leans against a tapestry in the hallway, at which point Charles coughs and says, “Hawkeye, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t lean on that. It’s a genuine Miró.”

Pulling away from the wall, Hawkeye turns around and regards the tapestry, which indeed looks like a Miró, with its abstract forms and block colors. However, wanting to give Charles a hard time, as always, Hawkeye merely says, “It’s alright, but I still prefer a genuine Merlot.”

Charles scoffs, and Margaret adds, “You know, it’s from his _studio_ , but I don’t know if I’d go as far as to say it’s a genuine Miró.”

“What are you talking about?” Charles says.

“Your mother told me that,” Margaret says.

“Yes, well, he _designed_ it,” Charles says. “So I’d argue it’s _his work_.”

“As delightful as this sequel to the Theseus ship problem is,” Hawkeye interjects, “I’d love to continue the tour. I’d like to have it rubbed in a little more how much the war made no dents in your career or lifestyle at all, Charles.”

“Well, you seem to be barreling ahead with the miscreant lifestyle you were accustomed to as well, so I don’t see what the problem is,” Charles replies.

“Charles!” Margaret says.

“What, are we supposed to be nice to him now that he has a drinking problem? He had one in Korea as well, and I was hardly ever nice to him then, and he returned the favor.”

“Yes, it’s much better this way,” Hawkeye says. “Charles is a sort of barometer for how bad my life is going, and the day he feels like he’s got to treat me kindly would only bode ill for me.”

“I don’t see why you men have to act like this all the time. It makes me glad I’m a lesbian,” Margaret says, and then she blushes pink a little at having said it out loud. It makes Hawkeye happy to hear it though, to see how she really does seem to feel more at ease here in this house than anywhere else. She hadn’t said the word “lesbian” out loud the whole weekend they were in Crabapple, even when they were alone.

“Yes, but women like you are the reason I’ve never fully crossed over to the other side,” Hawkeye quips back.

“Just remember who’s cooking you dinner later,” Margaret says. “Keep talking like that, and I’ll burn it.”

“That would hardly be fair to me,” Charles says.

“Life has already been more than fair to you, Charles,” Hawkeye tells him.

“So you heard about my concert pianist then, did you?” Charles says smugly.

“Charles, such crass language, I’m shocked!” Hawkeye says.

“What? I said—I said _pianist_ ,” Charles blusters.

As they move on from the hallway and into the living room, Hawkeye can’t help marveling at how _light_ he suddenly feels. He realizes that these little quips back and forth are the first time he’s ever really joked around about his sexuality with people who _know_. More than that, it’s the first time he’s been around _other_ gay people openly acknowledging their _own_ sexuality. It’s not as though they’re going to sit down later and have some heart to heart about it, and to be honest, he’s not even sure he’d want that. But even this, being able to talk like he did in Korea, but with a whole different understanding between himself and his friends, is incredibly freeing.

When they get to the living room, Hawkeye notices there’s a grand piano featured prominently. “Neither of you play, though, right?” Hawkeye asks. At the question, Margaret shakes her head and Hawkeye notices Charles blushing just slightly. “Hold on, wait a minute,” Hawkeye says. “Don’t tell me you’re so in love you ran out and bought the guy a _grand piano_ as a small token of your affections.”

“Getting to hear live music is one of the most edifying experiences one can have,” is all Charles will say, but he’s smiling. Having finished the tour, Charles begins to look through his records for something to put on, while Margaret gets Hawkeye to follow her into the kitchen, so he can keep her company while she cooks. Charles puts on the first of Bach’s cello suites, then follows them into the kitchen as well, although he leans on the counter just a bit away from them, as if to make it clear that he won’t be cooking.

“You know, I heard this performed in a Cathedral in Paris once. Most breath-taking acoustics I’ve ever experienced,” Charles says to Hawkeye.

“Yeah, well, one time I saw the most delightful little can-can from a showgirl in Vegas, but you don’t see me bragging about that all the time,” Hawkeye replies, but he’s smiling. He remembers the end of the war, when Charles said that music, which had been a refuge for him, would now always be a reminder. And yet here he is, smiling about his piano, putting on Bach, and bragging about concerts in Paris. Something must have changed between then and now. Maybe it’s the concert pianist. Or maybe, Hawkeye thinks, it’s that other people have been _working through_ their trauma these past few years instead of _letting their alcoholism worsen._ Seeing Charles happy is bittersweet; Hawkeye’s both glad and jealous. 

The three of them continue to banter as Margaret cooks and Hawkeye tries to help, handing her various spices when she asks for them and getting into an argument with her about what a “diced” onion should look like. All the while, Starbuck runs around at their feet, continually almost tripping them as he begs for scraps. At one point, Margaret does slip him some chicken.

“You know, Margaret, he wouldn’t continue to beg like that if you didn’t encourage it,” Charles says disapprovingly.

“Charles, I will feed _you_ only scraps if you keep making comments like that.”

Margaret says this so threateningly that Charles merely replies, “Right. Well. Feed him all the scraps you’d like.”

“Anyway, dinner is ready, so will you boys help me get this all on the table?” Margaret says.

“I’ll get us some wine, shall I?” Charles says. “Perhaps a Bordeaux?”

“Charles, I hardly think—“ Margaret says, glancing at Hawkeye, not sure how best to continue.

“Oh, please,” Charles replies. “After the lighter fluid he drank in Korea, I hardly think _wine_ counts.”

“That’s not how it works _at all_ , Charles,” Margaret says.

“No, no, I have to agree with Charles on this one,” Hawkeye says, doing his best to beam winningly at Margaret.

An argument ensues, but Charles and Hawkeye win out, and they all sit down to dinner with just a bit of wine. Hawkeye can’t help but notice that even though Charles keeps up his façade of indifference, he keeps going on about the vintage of the bottle, telling Hawkeye that he wouldn’t pull it out for just _any_ occasion. And he notices that Charles doesn’t ask about Hawkeye’s life back in Crabapple much, perhaps sensing Hawkeye doesn’t really want to talk about it. Instead, he recounts various pranks that Hawkeye & B.J. had pulled, and though he expresses his requisite disgust at the childishness of it all, each story serves to bolster Hawkeye’s spirit a little.

They sit talking at the table long after they’ve finished eating. At one point, they get themselves into hysterics about the time Williamson thought Margaret was a commie, and Hawkeye realizes that, oddly, he hasn’t laughed like this since the war. The evening starts to wind down, though, as Margaret and Hawkeye have to get up in practically the middle of the night to make it to the airport. Margaret in particular starts to look tired, and Hawkeye and Charles assure her that they’ll do the dishes, since she cooked. She hesitates a minute, but then runs over and gives Hawkeye a big hug before disappearing into her room.

Hawkeye and Charles settle into an easy rhythm where Hawkeye washes and Charles dries, and for a minute neither of them says much of anything. But then Charles goes, “So you’re going to go see Hunnicutt for the first time since the war, then?”

“Yes, Charles,” Hawkeye says, a little wary of what’s going to come next.

“I have never met two men with more of a shared penchant for tomfoolery,” Charles tells him. “Knowing what you got up to in Korea, I can only imagine what the two of you will do to San Francisco.”

“I don’t know, I kind of worry sometimes that my best days of tomfoolery are behind me,” Hawkeye says, caging his worries, per usual, in his joking tone.

At this, though, Charles sets down the dish he was drying, looks Hawkeye square in the eyes, and says, “Pierce, there are two things which will always be true of you: that you are an exceptional doctor, and that your medical skill is completely outshone by your absolute buffoonery. There is no doubt in my mind that you and Hunnicutt will have few hesitations before picking up your roguish activities right where they left off.”

“Really, Charles, that’s too sweet,” Hawkeye says sarcastically, but he really is touched.

He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed this. He’d told B.J., when they were leaving Korea, that the only thing he’d miss was him, and it’s true that he still misses B.J. most of all, but he realizes that for all the trauma the war gave him, it had also given him a family. Coming back to Crabapple, he had his dad, but all his friends from before the war, well – some of them had died, and some of them had moved away, but the ones who hadn’t, Hawkeye himself had pushed away.

Because the friends he had before the war – there were always parts of him that they hadn’t recognized or understood, aspects of his personality that they’d written off or ignored. And he’d thought that was fine, until he got to the 4077th. Until he found people that were willing to take him as he was, all of him. B.J. and Margaret most of all, but Potter and Mulcahy and even, sometimes, Charles. He’d never told anyone besides Margaret he was gay, but he’d still felt more seen at the 4077th than he had anywhere else. It wasn’t even that they’d always _liked_ all of who he was. Sometimes they even fought with him about it—B.J. pushing back against the appendectomy, Margaret yelling at him about Inga—but in an odd way, those fights had meant as much to him as any tender moment, because they meant that there were people in his life who weren’t looking away from even the hard parts of him, who would push back but would love him anyway.

Part of Hawkeye almost wants to stay here in Boston forever, even though he knows that the reality of it would be that they’d all drive each other crazy within a week. It’s just that this night reminds him of the good he found in Korea, despite everything, the good that he’s been having more and more trouble holding onto. It even did him one better than Korea; it gave him the smallest taste of how it feels to be out, to be able to joke and laugh with other gay people who _know_. And so he wants to play the evening on loop, to crawl into the warmth of the dinner and the jokes and the wine and let it wrap him up like a cocoon.

But he can’t. Because as oddly safe as he feels here, as much as this is as close as he’s come to contentment in a while, he still knows he’d trade it all for B.J. For just a week of being in B.J.’s house and making him laugh, of seeing his smile and that dopey mustache of his. He’d trade years of happiness, if it were offered to him, for the chance to love that man from some unspeakable distance across a room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Pat Boone’s version was near the top of the charts in September of 1955, so that would’ve been the version B.J. heard on the radio, but Fats Domino is the one who wrote the song & [his version](https://open.spotify.com/track/4ZfQwNx3FlCN07cnUvekh3?si=T4FcBBzzSmSC9rI7slcRDg) is much better.  
> ** The playground in the presidio was called the “Julius Kahn Playground” at the time & referred to as “J.K.” although it has since been renamed to the “Presidio Wall Playground” because Julius Kahn was a racist asshole who was involved in extending the Chinese Exclusion Act  
> *** According to my mother who, quote, “watched a sitcom about a single father in the ‘60s once,” babysitters were called housekeepers in the ’50s.
> 
> Thank you for reading! This fic is definitely going to be more than ten chapter long at this point lmao. I'm updating my estimate to 15 chapters for now. Also, I've been updating about once per week but just wanted to let you know some updates might be more like once every two weeks! I'm sure no one is holding me to my one week schedule besides myself, but just wanted to announce that for my own peace of mind. Some updates will still be more frequent though I'm sure. Depends on the chapter/my life/etc. As always, kudos and comments are appreciated ❤️


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Continued thanks to [horaetio](https://archiveofourown.org/users/horaetio/pseuds/horaetio) for being an amazing beta reader!! And to my mother for making sure that Erin sounds like an actual four year old!

Margaret drops Hawkeye off at the airport early the next morning, before anyone should rightfully be awake. As Hawkeye gets out of her car and grabs his bag, she says, “Let me walk you to the gate.”

“Aw, come on, you don’t have to do that,” Hawkeye says.

“I know I don’t _have_ to do it. I also didn’t _have_ to drive you to the airport. I could’ve let you hitchhike at 4:30 in the morning. Let me walk you to your gate.”

“Alright, fine,” Hawkeye says. “Only if you insist.” They lapse into silence for a minute. It’s not just the early hour; each of them is caught up in their own thoughts. Hawkeye’s worried about seeing B.J., Margaret’s worried about both of them.

When they get to the gate, Hawkeye breaks the silence and says, “Are you sure you don’t want to run away with me? I could change my ticket for two to Paris.”

“I think that would be slightly more expensive than the price of one ticket to California.”

“Ah, but you’re worth it,” Hawkeye says. Margaret manages to tear up a little and laugh at the same time. “Oh, come on now,” Hawkeye says. “You’re not laughing at my bad jokes all of a sudden? Don’t do that, it’ll make me start laughing too.”

“You big… you big lug head!” Margaret says, throwing her arms around him. “I hope it all works out for you! Call me when you know when you’re getting back, and I can pick you up from the airport.”

“And if it doesn’t work out, _then_ can we run away to Paris?”

Margaret pulls away and rolls her eyes. “If I say yes, will you go ahead and get on the plane?”

“I’ll take that as a promise, and I’m holding you to it,” Hawkeye says, starting to walk away.

“Have a safe trip!” Margaret calls after him. “Call me when you get in!”

He turns and waves, then disappears into the plane.

***

The plane ride is about as fun as Hawkeye’s been expecting; he’s never been a fan of planes. Somehow, he’s always preferred helicopters. He’s sure they’re just as dangerous, but the way that they’re open to the air, they don’t play into his claustrophobia in quite the same way. He can tell he’s driving the guy next to him crazy, the way he’s bouncing his legs and constantly readjusting, but he can’t help it. What he really wants to do is get up and pace, but he has to settle for exuding nervous energy in these more subtle ways. So he fidgets, and he tries to read (he’s working on _All Quiet on the Western Front_ right now), and he fills out some of those postcards they always give you. He’s so unfocused, though, that he’s not sure any of the cards will make enough sense to actually send once he reaches the ground.

Unfortunately, the book and the postcards and even all the fidgeting in the world prove to be no match for a creeping anxiety that makes him feel like he can’t breath. The cigarette smoke that’s filling up the cabin certainly doesn’t help. It’s not long before he breaks down and orders a drink, even though it’s much too early for that. Hawkeye tells himself that these are extenuating circumstances. By the time they touch down in San Francisco, the combination of his claustrophobia, his impending reunion with B.J., and the free alcohol means he’s an absolute mess. He’s glad B.J. isn’t there to pick him up at the airport.

Hawkeye has just a bit of time to kill before it hits five pm, and he can get a cab over to B.J.’s, but not really long enough to try and go into the city to see any tourist attractions or anything. To be honest, he prefers it this way. He’s such a nervous wreck he probably wouldn’t be able to take in any of his surroundings anyway. Plus, call him a romantic, but he wants B.J. to be the one to show him the city, right from the very start. But not wanting to go into the city means of course he ends up at the airport bar. He doesn’t really mean to, even; it’s just that it’s a convenient place to wait. As long as he gets one drink and nurses it, nobody’ll mind him hanging around for a while. So he gets a drink. Just one drink.

***

Sunday morning, B.J.’s a nervous wreck. He bolts awake at five am, even before Erin is up, which rarely happens. He appreciates the sentiment of Hawkeye not wanting to mess up his time with Erin, but his anxiety might throw a wrench in his day with her anyway. Still, he knows lying in bed thinking about everything won’t do him any good. So he gets up and makes himself some eggs, then drinks about four cups of coffee too many. It’s a nervous habit of his, even though he knows coffee has the opposite effect of calming him down; if he can’t turn to alcohol, though, he needs _some_ sort of drink that feels even a bit like a shock to the system. As he’s downing his fourth cup, he starts pacing around the apartment. His mind keeps going back to the same place it’s been drifting since he got the call Friday; he wishes he could throw Hawk a party.

It’s not that B.J. wants to put off being alone with Hawkeye, even if he is nervous about what it will look like to re-negotiate their relationship under these new circumstances. It’s more about the joy he feels humming along underneath his nerves, a joy almost as immense and uncontrollable as his anxiety. He wants to celebrate. He wants to bring back all the best of their army days, the little pockets of joy they found amid everything else. He wants streamers and cake and a room full of people singing and dancing, and then he wants to catch Hawk’s eye in the middle of all of it and know, just from a look, what the other man’s thinking. 

Only thing is, he’s not sure who he’d invite. For one thing, Hawkeye doesn’t know anybody here in the city. But even if B.J. wanted to introduce Hawk to a bunch of new people on his first night in town, he’s not quite sure just who those people would be. It isn’t that Peggy got all their friends in the divorce; if anything, she tried to encourage B.J. to keep seeing them. But even before the divorce went through, B.J. had felt the relationships changed from what they were before the war, before Hawkeye. He’s been begging off seeing people for a while now, even friends of his from before he met Peggy, a few kids that grew up with him and stayed in the bay.

B.J. realizes that the guys from his boxing group at the Y are probably the people he sees most consistently now, other than Erin, Peg, and his coworkers. But as with his coworkers, B.J.’s made his best effort _not_ to get to know anybody from the Y too well. He realizes that he’s gone from being a man who looked for any excuse to throw a party during a war to a civilian looking for any excuse to stay in. But B.J. doesn’t allow himself to wallow with this depressing revelation; even though he’d joked with Hawkeye on the phone about sitting around not being any fun together, he wants to try and give the guy a warm welcome.

_Fine,_ B.J. thinks. _Fine, maybe I can’t have a whole host of people over, but maybe Hawkeye wouldn’t want that anyway. That doesn’t mean I can’t still buy a cake, put up some decorations._ He knows that Blum’s over at Union Square has cakes good enough to practically make a whole party themselves, plus Erin will be delighted to go there this afternoon.

By the time he’s come up with this plan, it’s six am and Erin’s actually up, walking out of her room already full of energy. “Hi, pumpkin,” B.J. says, a little more cheerful now that he has a plan for Hawkeye’s welcome. Besides, running around town picking up cakes and decorations will give him and Erin something to do. “Do you want some breakfast?”

She nods.

“What do you want?” B.J. says.

“Oatmeal!”

“Oatmeal _what_?”

“Oatmeal pleaaase.”

He smiles. “With cinnamon?” he asks, and she nods. Lately, Erin will _only_ eat oatmeal with cinnamon for breakfast. “Do you wanna listen to something?” he asks her.

“Frank Sinatra!” she says. Erin is absolutely enamored with Frank Sinatra, and knows all the lyrics to his songs, although she’ll often mess them up in adorable ways. B.J. grins, picking her up and holding her in one arm, letting her rest on his hip. He carries her into the living room to put on the record, then back into the kitchen, leaving the swinging door propped open so they can hear the music better. As Frank Sinatra’s voice comes pouring in over the speaker and into the kitchen, Erin sings along with him in her adorable little girl voice:

_My funny valentine  
Sweet comic valentine  
You make me smile with my heart  
Your looks are laughable  
Unfofograssable  
But you're my favourite work of art_

B.J. holds back a laugh at Erin’s mangling of “unphotographable,” setting her down so he can make her oatmeal. After breakfast, B.J. plays an elaborate game with Erin and her toy horses, where a bad man is trying to catch them, and they have to keep escaping by jumping over rivers, and the baby horse keeps almost getting left behind, but then one of the other horses saves her at the last minute. After that, he takes her out to J.K. She makes him watch her on the monkey bars, and each time, he’s worried she’s going to fall and skin her knees, even as he’s proud of her, even as he watches her swing confidently from one bar to the next. She’s unafraid.

“Sweetheart, getting hungry?” B.J. finally says as she runs back over to him. She shakes her head. “Well, daddy is getting hungry, so I think maybe it’s time to leave the playground.”

“I’m not done on the monkey bars!” she says.

“Well,” B.J. says, “if you really want to stay here, we can, but that means we might not have time to go to Blum’s.” Her eyes light up as soon as he says this, and all thoughts of protest are gone. It’s even easy to convince her to put on her little white gloves, the ones she normally hates having to wear downtown. Once they get to Blum’s, he buys two grilled cheese sandwiches, one for Erin and one for himself, and they sit at the counter eating them before he lets her look at the candy. The whole time, though, she keeps talking about what treat she’s going to get. “I want a lollipop,” she tells him.

“Well, you’re in luck, because I hear they have them here,” B.J. tells her.

“Or a cookie.”

“Well, if you want a cookie more than a lollipop, then you should get a cookie.”

“Can I have _both_?” she says, doing her best to give him an angelic expression.

“You’ll have to choose one,” he tells her. Finishing up her grilled cheese, she hops down from her stool and runs over to look in the glass cases. B.J. follows her, waiting patiently as she agonizes over her choices before choosing a raspberry-jam-filled cookie. After she chooses it, B.J. says, “Daddy has to pick up something else.”

He knows that buying a whole cake in front of her and then not giving her any is cruel, so he decides he’ll get some more cookies for when she inevitably asks for some cake later. He browses for a while. “Is it somebody’s birthday?” Erin says.

“No,” B.J. says. “Sometimes grownups buy cakes when it’s not their birthday.”

“Is it a cake for me?” Erin says.

“No,” B.J. says. “You’ll have to wait till you’re a little older before you get to have cake when it’s not your birthday.”

“I had cake at Jenny’s birthday,” Erin says.

“Okay, well, you’ll have to wait till you’re a little older until you get to have cake when it’s nobody’s birthday.”

“When’s my birthday?” Erin says. “How soon?”

“Not for four more months, sweetie,” B.J. says, still considering the cakes.

“Is that soon?”

“It’s not that soon,” B.J. says. “But I promise I’ll get you a very good cake when it does happen.”

“Is the cake for you?” Erin says.

“No, it’s for my friend. Daddy has a friend coming to visit him.”

“Does he like cake?”

“Yes.”

“Does he like cake more than me?”

“I don’t know,” B.J. says, smiling.

“Is it his birthday?” Erin says.

“No,” B.J. says. “Okay, I have to order the cake.” He gets a German chocolate cake, both because he’s had Blum’s German chocolate cake before and knows it’s delicious, and because he knows Erin doesn’t like chocolate cake, just vanilla.

Cake box and bag of cookies in hand, he leads Erin back to the car. “What’s your friend’s name?” she asks.

“His name is Hawkeye. He’s daddy’s friend from when I was in Korea. When I had to go away and help the men that got hurt fighting in another country.”

“Like a _hawk’s eye_?”

“Yes, kind of,” B.J. says. “It’s from a book. His dad called him that. It’s a nickname.”

“Like when you call me ‘bug’? Even though that’s not actually my name?”

“Exactly,” B.J. says.

“Is his dad coming too?”

B.J. holds back a laugh at that. “No, his dad’s not coming. When you’re old like me, you can go places on your own.”

“Is he old?” Erin says.

“He’s the same age as me.”

“Will he play with me?”

“I hope so,” B.J. says. “I hope you’ll get to meet him.”

Erin’s questions continue fairly ceaselessly throughout the drive. She’s like this about everything, nowadays, but while it can sometimes become a little bit much, today B.J. finds it calming. He’s talked about Hawkeye a few times around Erin, maybe, but not much. Her curiosity about him now gives B.J. hopes that she’ll like him; he lets himself daydream, just a bit, about the two of them meeting, getting along. Even more than that, it’s soothing to talk about Hawkeye with a four-year-old, to feel, for a minute, like the complicated strings of their relationship are reducible to easy answers, that the most complicating factors about it are where Hawkeye got his name and why he gets a cake.

They stop at another store on the way home, picking up basic party decorations. At first, he thinks he’ll just get streamers, but then he sees one of those “happy birthday” signs that you can string up on the wall. He can’t help himself – he buys it, even though he knows it’ll confuse Erin after the conversation they just had about how it’s no one’s birthday.

Once they get back to the apartment, he puts on an Ella Fitzgerald album. _Don’t laugh at my jokes too much / People will say we’re in love_ , Ella sings as he decorates. Erin wants to help, so he gives her the crepe paper and holds her up, letting her tape it in place. Then, she decides she wants to draw a picture for Hawkeye, so he can see “what a good drawer” she is. She draws Hawkeye a horse, which, according to her teacher, is an impressive thing for a four-year-old to be able to do. Peggy says it’s because Erin’s so obsessed with the horse toys her grandparents got her last year, but B.J. thinks it’s because he has the most talented and incredible daughter in the world.

“He’s gonna love it,” B.J. tells Erin, setting the drawing down on the counter. Looking down at it, this gift from his daughter to Hawkeye, he feels, for a moment, some sort of hope. Here he is, decorating for a party of two, in the company of Erin and his records. Stunningly, shockingly, his happiness might be outweighing his anxiety, just for the time being. _What if it’s good?_ he thinks. _What if it all ends up alright after all?_

***

Back at the airport bar, Hawkeye keeps the promise he made to himself to drink just one drink. Still, when he finishes it, he finds that the combination of the one airport whiskey with the many airplane gins means he is pretty well and plastered. He glances at the clock hanging above the bar. Six pm. _Damn_. He told B.J. he’d show up sometime after five. He knows he warned B.J. about his drinking habits, but showing up three sheets to the wind on his very first night in town is maybe _not_ the ideal circumstance for their reunion. “Hey, guy, can I get a coffee?” he asks the bartender. He said _sometime_ after five. He can sit here and sober up a minute. Just one minute.

***

B.J. drops Erin off at Peggy’s house. As Erin runs off to play with Annie, Peggy and B.J. linger in the kitchen, B.J. catching Peggy up on how Erin was this week. The whole time he’s talking, he can feel his heart fluttering in his chest. He feels like he’s lying to her by not telling her that Hawkeye’s coming to visit. But they’re not husband and wife anymore, and Hawkeye’s not—well, he’s just a friend. It feels odd not to tell her, but it would feel odd to mention it, too, so instead he keeps quiet about it, making a fairly hasty goodbye. If she notices that something’s up with him, she doesn’t ask.

Back at home, B.J. realizes that Hawkeye hadn’t said _when_ exactly he’d show up, just that it’d be “sometime after five.” _How did he even get a ticket on such short notice?_ B.J. thinks. He should’ve had Hawk call back, give him his flight details. At the time, on the phone, the whole thing had felt so surreal that the question of exact arrival times hadn’t even occurred to him. Now, of course, it’s the most pressing detail in all the world. What’s he supposed to do for the next, oh, _unknown number of hours?_

It’s times like these that he’s especially glad he doesn’t keep any alcohol in the house. Still, if he’s not going to drink, he’s got to do _something_ with himself. He _definitely_ does not have the patience for embroidery right now, but if he goes down to the garage to work on his bikes, he might not hear Hawkeye arrive. Normally, he’d just leave the garage door open, but it’s started raining, an actual hard downpour, which is rare for San Francisco. He remembers when Hawkeye would get stir crazy and literally climb the walls of the swamp – though it used to drive him nuts, he now understands the impulse.

For a while, he walks around the house fixing up the streamers, but then even that becomes unbearable. Full of nervous energy, B.J. lies down on the floor of his living room, hoping that, if he just lies very still, maybe he can trick his mind into serenity. After a minute or two of this not working, though, he rolls over and starts doing push ups. It’s the exact sort of thing Hawkeye would make fun of him for, but Hawkeye’s not here yet. B.J. doesn’t stop until his arms are so tired that he practically collapses to the ground. Then he gets up and goes to look at the clock in the kitchen. Oh, good. He’s killed half an hour so far.

At this point, B.J. decides it’s worth it to risk the cold and damp in order to work on his bike. When he’d given up the bad coping mechanism that was alcohol, he’d only found a few really solid replacements for it, so he finds himself without a lot of options whenever he gets really out of his mind like this. To the garage it is, then. He makes his way downstairs, opens up the garage door to the elements, and get to work, all the while thinking, _Hawkeye’s going to be here any minute now._

***

Hawkeye’s “minute” of sobering up turns into a few hours. He drinks first one cup of coffee, then a second, and finds he feels no more sober but much more jittery. Eventually, he goes over to a payphone and dials Margaret’s number, which he’s managed to learn by heart in the last week. Definitely something he just picked up, not something he memorized on purpose. He’s not going to admit that, after not having talked to her for two years, knowing he can call her at any time, from any place, suddenly feels like a lifeline he didn’t know he needed.

Margaret picks up, sounding anxious. “Hello?”

“It’s Hawkeye.”

“Is everything all right?”

“Yeah, it’s fine. I mean, I’m here. In the airport.”

“Well, then, what the hell are you calling me for? It’s midnight here on the East Coast!”

“Oh, shoot, Margaret, I forgot about the time difference.”

“Well, I’m up now, so you might as well tell me why you called.”

“Well, what if…”

“Yes?”

“What if I just don’t?” Hawkeye says.

“Don’t what?”

“What if I just hop on another plane and come back to Maine.”

“Then I will bring a frying pan to the airport, so I can hit you over the head with it upon your return, and while you are unconscious, I will stuff your body in a suitcase and have you shipped right back across the country.”

“That’s not very nice.”

“Yes, well, neither is calling me at midnight just because you’ve suddenly gotten all nervous about seeing your boyfriend.”

“Don’t call him that!”

“Well, what do you want me to call him?”

“Just call him B.J.!”

“Alright, your B.J.”

“He’s not my anything, Margaret.”

“Well, not yet. Not if you keep standing at the airport talking to me.”

Hawkeye sighs.

“Listen,” Margaret says. “I _know_ that it’s hard. I _know_ that it’s nerve-wracking. And I also know you’ll be fine, and I know I need to get some sleep. Do both me and yourself a favor and hang up and get a cab, will you? If you get your heart broken, you can run right back home, and I’ll welcome you with open arms. But until then, please let me sleep through the night.”

“Fine,” Hawkeye says. “I’ll call a cab.”

“Good,” Margaret says.

“Good,” Hawkeye says. Then, “Sleep tight, Margaret. Dream of me.”

And Margaret really must be tired, because instead of offering some indignant reply, she actually jokes back, “Oh, I always do,” before hanging up the phone with a decisive click.

***

Hawkeye piles himself into a cab. He manages to ride in silence for just a few minutes before asking the cab driver, “Do you get weather like this a lot?” It’s pouring and has been for hours.

“No,” the cab driver says shortly.

“Because, I mean, you know, when Ella said California was cold and damp, I sort of thought she meant there was a general mist in off the ocean, or something. Sort of a romantic fog along the cliffs, seagulls and sailors on the pier. I didn’t expect it to pour like this. Almost feels like a bad sign, you know. Showing up to California to find it’s raining. Although, you know, I guess it rained like that on Gene Kelly, too, didn’t it? And that movie was in California. That was quite a popular movie. Not that a movie’s popularity has the ability to affect weather patterns. Still, you gotta wonder if it put something in the air or something.”

“Huh?” the cabbie says.

“ _Singing in the Rain._ 1952\. Come on, where were you?”

“I was driving cabs around full of less talkative people than you.”

“Aren’t Californians supposed to be friendly?”

“Except on Sundays. Sundays, I get the day off from being friendly.,” the cabbie says.

Hawkeye laughs a little at this, but then barrels ahead. “Aren’t you going to ask me where I was in 1952?”

“I don’t know, where were you? Some loony bin which you’ve now escaped from?”

Hawkeye snorts. “Practically. I was in Korea.”

“So were a lot of other guys. You don’t see them running around rambling about Gene Kelly.”

“Ah, well, blame the rambling on my time in the loony bin,” Hawkeye says.

“They got loony bins in Korea?”

“Yup. Made to order for only the most cracked of the Americans abroad.”

The cabbie glances back at Hawkeye. “Hey, you’re not gonna crack here and now, are you? ‘Cause I said I didn’t see the Gene Kelly movie?”

“Nah,” Hawkeye says. “I take Sundays off from losing my mind.”

“Ah, real funny.”

For another few minutes, Hawkeye does his best to remain quiet. He can tell the driver doesn’t want to be the captive audience for his nervous monologue-ing. Unfortunately, Hawkeye can’t help himself, and after a few minutes, he speaks up again. “Anyway, I’m seeing—um. I’m seeing this girl for the first time since the war. Trying to win her back. Well, not back, really. I never really had her in the first place. But we had some fun times, you know.”

“Oh, I know,” the driver says. _No you don’t,_ Hawkeye thinks, but it feels good to talk to somebody, anybody, even if it’s a twisted version of the truth that he’s telling. Hawkeye’s never been good at keeping everything bottled up, but he’s never lived in a world where he can let all of it out, either, so he ends up in situations like this, spinning facsimiles, fairytales—whatever you want to call them—for strangers.

His driver adds, “Must be _some_ girl, if you flew to California for her after the war’s been over two years.”

Hawkeye looks out the window, into the rain, for a moment before answering. He smiles. “She sure is.”

“Well, if she’s really all that, I don’t see what chance a guy like you has with her, but I guess miracles do happen.”

“I can only hope.”

Hawkeye gets a little quieter once they get off the 101 and make their way through the Haight, right past the very edge of Golden Gate, and into the Richmond district. Despite the dark and the rain, Hawkeye can’t help glancing out his window to see if he can find traces of B.J. out there in the streets. Before Korea, he’d never given much thought to California. It had the Pacific, but he had the Atlantic. It had Hollywood, but he had Broadway. (Well, kind of. His coast had it.) But now, he can’t help loving this city just a little, even before he’s really seen it, just for being the place where B.J. grew up, the place where he is now. He wants the city to reveal parts of B.J. he hasn’t previously known, the other man’s boyhood memories springing back up to life in front of him. Instead, all he sees are unfamiliar streets glinting past him, briefly illuminated by streetlights before the cab drives on.

Eventually, they pull up on a dead-end street. It’s ten pm and quiet, except for the rain. “Well, this is the street,” the driver tells him. “I can’t make out the exact addresses in the dark. Do you know which one it is?”

“Here is fine,” Hawkeye says. “Here is great.” He pays the driver and makes his way out of the cab, eyes searching in the rain for addresses.

He expects each house to look equally impersonal; not that they’re lacking in character, only that each Victorian is hard to distinguish from the next at this time of night, in this kind of weather. Some people have the lights on in their living rooms, but the first floors of each building are almost all up above garages, leaving no way to see any distinguishing details from the street. But as Hawkeye walks up the street, he notices one house with light pouring out from the ground floor. He gets some odd feeling that it’s going to be B.J.’s house. If it’s B.J.’s house, maybe the rain isn’t such a bad omen after all. Maybe they’ll have their Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds moment, huddled together just out of the downpour, a first sweet kiss, and then a euphoria so big it turns the weather into something marvelous.

As soon as he has the thought, of course, he tells himself he’s being ridiculous. He keeps walking up the block, squinting up at the tiny little tiles that give the addresses. He’s walking, and squinting, and half holding his coat over his bag, half holding it over his head, when suddenly he’s there, at the house with all the light pouring out of it, and there, in fact, is B.J., sitting in his garage with its door open to all the elements, face all screwed up, working on some dumb bike of his.

There is B.J.

Two years of not having him, and here he is. B.J. hasn’t noticed him yet, and Hawkeye realizes this is the last time he can have this moment in pictures and stories. After so long of yearning for the real thing, the flesh and blood of the other man in front of him, he finds some gossamer fear lurking in him, some part of himself that doesn’t want to get rid of the imaginary, the what if. So he stands there for a moment just looking, just taking B.J. in like he’s a ghost or a painting or a poem.

And then B.J. looks up, and the spell is broken, and glorious reality draws Hawkeye in. B.J. smiles like he can’t help himself, that wide smile of his where his whole face lights up. “Hawkeye!” he says. “What are you doing standing there in the rain? Come in, come in!” As he’s talking, B.J. puts down his tools. Hawkeye finds himself so dumbfounded at hearing the man speak that he doesn’t move, and B.J. runs over to him, out into the rain, grabbing ahold of his coat. For one crazy instant, Hawkeye thinks his fantasies are about to come true, that B.J. really is going to kiss him right here in the rain. But then B.J. just pulls him into the garage by his coat collar, laughing and not letting go even once they’re under cover.

For a second, the lyrics of an Ella Fitzgerald song flash through Hawkeye’s mind: don’t stand in the rain with me / people will say we’re in love, but then B.J. starts talking and Hawkeye doesn’t think about anything but the sound of his voice.

“Put your suitcase down so I can get a good look at you!” B.J. says, keeping one hand on Hawkeye’s arm even as he steps back a little to do seemingly just that – to just look at Hawkeye, just take him in.

“I’d have thought you would’ve had enough of seeing my ugly mug back in Korea,” Hawkeye says, but he complies, setting his suitcase on the ground, then doing a sort of idiotic, half-jazz-hands “ta-da” gesture, which is less-than-successful, given his reluctance to let go of B.J.

“I’m looking forward to remembering all your most annoying habits now that we’re roomies again. Or, you know,” B.J. says, then sort of coughs a little, pulling Hawkeye into a full embrace. Hawkeye settles into it as much as he’ll allow himself to; he’s _well_ aware of the full length of their bodies pressed against one another, B.J.’s arms around him. Hawkeye hugs B.J. back fully, but what he really wants to do is just _collapse_ into B.J.’s arms, just sit down right there in the open garage with the rain coming in and not move until morning. He wants to ask B.J. to hold onto him and not let go. For a second, he can swear he feels B.J.’s hands in his hair, but then they pull away from each other.

“You look good, Hawkeye,” B.J. says, sounding relieved, like he expected Hawkeye to have become somehow unrecognizable.

“Really? Because I _feel_ like a wet dog.”

B.J. laughs. “What am I doing standing around in my garage with you! Let’s get you upstairs and get you out of your wet clo—your wet coat.”

B.J. wipes his hands on a rag, then looks over at Hawkeye. “Ah, hell, I’ve gotten grease on your coat.”

“That’s okay, I’ve gotten water all over you,” Hawkeye says.

“Well, that washes off,” B.J. says. He takes Hawkeye’s suitcase and reaches out for Hawkeye again, seemingly about to take his hand, but then he just grabs Hawkeye’s coat sleeve. B.J. pulls Hawkeye out of the garage, closing the door behind them. It’s suddenly very dark, no light in the stairwell, and B.J. turns around before they start to climb the stairs, whispering, “We have to be quiet so we don’t wake the downstairs neighbors.”

Hawkeye takes the darkness, and B.J.’s urging him to keep quiet, as an excuse to reach out and grab at the back of B.J.’s shirt, letting B.J. lead him up the stairs. For some reason, Hawkeye finds himself feeling unbelievably giddy. They’re just two grown men making their way to B.J.’s apartment while trying to be considerate of his neighbors. But something about the darkness of the stairwell and his hand clutching B.J.’s shirt makes the whole thing feel mischievous, like back in college when they’d sneak girls into their dorm rooms for parties.

But soon enough they are up the stairs and into the apartment with its lights on. One more set of stairs up to the landing and here they are. B.J.’s house. And not just B.J.’s place, but B.J.’s place strewn with streamers and a sign that says, “Happy birthday!”

B.J. drops Hawk’s suitcase right there in the hall, and Hawkeye punches him lightly, jokingly in the arm. “You bastard,” he says, looking at the happy birthday sign.

“Well, you never did end up letting me borrow your birthday, back in Korea,” B.J. says. “So I thought I’d make up for lost time.” The way he looks at Hawkeye when he says this last sentence makes Hawkeye want to look away, but he doesn’t. He holds B.J.’s gaze. It’s B.J. who looks away first, saying, “Come on, I got something else for you.”

Hawkeye follows B.J. into his kitchen, feeling almost delirious. Here he is, standing in a _home_ in _California_ with _B.J._ And B.J. is holding out a cake, a full cake, to him. Seeing Hawkeye’s stunned expression, B.J. starts laughing, still holding the cake, almost dropping it. He sets it back down on the counter. “I can take it back if you don’t like it,” B.J. jokes. “I think I kept the receipt.”

“No, Beej, no, it’s perfect. I mean—I mean a whole cake? And the streamers? And everything? Just for me?”

“I wanted it to feel just a little bit like a party. I don’t know, you came all the way out to California. I thought we should celebrate a little bit.”

It’s weird, because this is the point at which Hawkeye would make a quip about _really_ getting the party started, and B.J. would bring out the martinis, but B.J. doesn’t do that anymore. Hawkeye feels both sorry for having drank earlier tonight and sorry that he can’t drink more now. It’s not that he and B.J. didn’t spend plenty of time together sober, in Korea. He wasn’t drunk _the whole three years._ But being alone in B.J.’s kitchen with him now, so close to what he wants without fully having it, with everything he wants to tell B.J. stuck in his throat – well, it’s just that a drink might smooth things over, is all. As he’s thinking this, Hawkeye realizes that B.J. is looking at him expectantly, and so he quickly says, “Yes, we _should_ celebrate! Here, get me a knife, and I’ll cut up this cake.”

B.J. grins at him, rummaging through a drawer before handing him one. Hawkeye cuts into the cake once, and then says, “Okay, tell me when,” moving his knife as it hovers over the cake, waiting for B.J. to indicate how big a slice he wants.

“No, the birthday boy gets the first piece,” B.J. says.

“Well, in _that_ case,” Hawkeye says, and cuts a generous portion for himself, putting it onto a plate that B.J. provides for him. He cuts B.J. an equally big one.

“Should we take this out into the dining room?” B.J. asks.

“No, here is fine,” Hawkeye says, sitting down in one of the director’s chairs at B.J.’s small kitchen table. There’s something about late nights spent in kitchens that Hawkeye finds particularly comforting. B.J. is about to sit down, too, when Hawkeye says, “Hey, what does a guy have to do to get a glass of milk around here?”

“I don’t know. What are you _willing_ to do?” The way B.J. grins at him wickedly after saying it practically makes Hawkeye’s brain short-circuit. _He didn’t flirt so shamelessly with me in Korea, right? I mean, a little, but not this much? If he keeps kidding like this, I don’t know how much I can take._

All Hawkeye says, though, as he lightly shoves B.J., is, “Hey, is that any way to talk to a lady?”

B.J. sets his cake down at the table and then goes over to the fridge, still grinning, to pour two glasses of milk. Bringing them back over, he sits down with his feet up on the table, cake in hand. Seeing B.J. sit like that reminds Hawkeye of all the times B.J. showed no regard for propriety and sat just like this in Potter’s office. If he still sits like this, even sober in California, maybe not so much has changed after all. For a minute or two, they sit and eat in silence, until B.J. speaks up. “So, how was the flight?” he asks easily.

Hawkeye is supremely grateful for the question. There’s so much to talk about, so much to tell. But there’s also the intoxication of being in one another’s presence after so long apart, an intoxication that makes it hard to begin to tell it all. Starting here, starting with this, this _How was your flight? How was your day, how was your yesterday?_ , they can work their way out. For now, it’ll be nice just to talk about something simple. Hawkeye hears in the question the implicit understanding that B.J. wants, just as much as him, just to sit and talk about nothing. They just want to hear one another’s voice, but not get caught up in conversation so absorbing that it distracts from the physical pleasure of being in the same room again.

Hawkeye understands all this, and answers B.J., “The flight was great, if you enjoy being stuck in a tin can full of cigarette smoke for hours.”

“Was it raining, too, on your way in? I was worried about a shaky landing for you.”

Hawkeye coughs. It hadn’t actually been raining when he landed, hours earlier. “Um, well, no, the landing was okay. How about you? How—how was Erin today?”

He’s almost scared to ask the question, to bring up B.J.’s daughter. Because he doesn't know if that will lead to another question: _Do you want to meet her?_ He doesn’t know what he’ll answer when asked. He _does_ want to meet Erin. He bets—no, he knows—that B.J. is just about the best dad there is. And he knows Erin is a wonderful kid.

But Erin isn’t just B.J.’s kid, she’s also Peggy’s. Even with the divorce, there’s still something thorny about that relationship that makes Hawkeye afraid to touch it. Plus, there’s the small detail of what happened in Korea, the incident that ultimately landed him in the sanitarium. The fact that he operated on one kid after he got out doesn’t mean he’s gotten over all his hang-ups when it comes to children. And with his drinking, with the mess that he is—well, he’s not sure he needs to bring any of that into Erin’s life.

_But I’m just here for a little while, anyway_ , Hawkeye reminds himself. And he knows talking about Erin will make B.J. happy, and he wants to make B.J. happy. Sure enough, B.J. smiles at the question, telling Hawkeye, “She’s just great. She’s so good at the monkey bars – there’s a playground just a few blocks down the street from here, at the edge of the presidio, and she was up there for what felt like all morning.” He keeps going, telling Hawkeye about taking her to Union Square, to Blum’s, and the whole time he’s got this look on his face that he never quite has when he talks about anything else. “Let me show you some of her drawings,” B.J. says. B.J. takes the now-empty plates from the table, setting them in the sink before leaving the room briefly.

He comes back with a big stack of drawings, stopping at the counter to grab one more, putting it at the bottom of the pile. Then he sits back down, scooting his chair a little closer to Hawkeye’s so he can get a good look at them. “Just look at the way she uses color,” B.J. says at one point. Hawkeye thought he’d have to humor B.J. a little, pretend to be absorbed by the drawings, but he finds himself getting pulled in. _Look at all the little worlds this kid created_ , he thinks.

“They really are something, Beej,” he says.

“You think so?” B.J. says.

“Yeah, I really do. They’re great. You can see her personality in them.”

“She—she actually made one for you, this afternoon. When I told her you were coming.” B.J. pulls the last piece of paper out from the pile, handing it over to Hawkeye, saying, “She’s _very_ into horses right now.”

“You ought to introduce her to Colonel Potter,” Hawkeye jokes, then adds, “Look at this! It’s really a horse! Right there on the page. I can see the mane”—he points—“and everything! I’ve always wanted a horse.”

B.J. grins. “I’m glad you like it. I would’ve had to throw you out otherwise.”

“In this weather? You’d never.”

They sit talking for a little while after that, with the rain still beating against the window but the kitchen light warm overhead. Eventually, though, they feel exhaustion setting in—they’ve both been awake since practically the crack of dawn, if not earlier—and B.J. says, “Let me make up the couch for you. I wish I had a bed to offer, but the only other room in the house, aside from mine, is Erin’s. No guestroom, unfortunately.”

“No, no, the couch is fine,” Hawkeye says. “After those cots in Korea for three years, it’ll feel like a stay at the Hilton.” B.J. gets some sheets, and they work to make up the bed together. After it’s done, they stand in the living room for a moment, somehow unsure how to say goodnight.

“Well,” B.J. says finally, “I guess I’ll see you in the morning.”

“I guess so,” Hawkeye says.

“Oh, come here,” B.J. says, pulling Hawkeye into one more hug. They’d hugged in Korea, too, but there had always been a pretense, an exceptional circumstance. A patient had just pulled through, or they were saying goodbye. Here, in California, it seems B.J. has decided the rules are different. Here, he’s hugging Hawkeye seemingly just because he can, because he wants to. “I’m really glad you’re here, Hawk,” he says, pulling away. He starts to walk away, then turns back and says, “Sleep well,” before disappearing down the hall. As Hawkeye watches him go, he’s grateful for the sanctuary of B.J.’s apartment and the small intimacies it affords them. It’s not everything he wants, but it’s sure as hell more than he’d hoped for.

He turns out the light after settling down on the couch. It’s located right underneath three large windows that look down onto the street, and the moon’s coming in them bright enough to still light up the room a little. He looks around at what it illuminates: a painting on the wall done in shades of green, the branches of a tree reaching out from tall grass; some three-dimensional art piece, a face welded out of black metal with odds and ends hanging off it, almost kaleidoscope-like except that it’s contained within a glass box, unable to move. These pieces of art; the record player on the wall and stacks of albums, the titles of which he can’t make out; the coffee table with its copies of various medical magazines and newspapers – all these pieces of a life that B.J. had before he knew Hawkeye, that he returned to after the war, but which he’s now letting Hawkeye into, just a little. Even with B.J. down the hall, in some other room, occupied with what thoughts Hawkeye doesn’t know—just being here in B.J.’s house, Hawkeye feels more at peace than he has in a while. He feels safe, somehow. B.J.’s always had that effect on him. It’s nice, Hawkeye thinks, as he drifts to sleep, that some things haven’t changed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks for reading, and thank you to everyone that's been leaving comments and kudos ❤️


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you as always to [horaetio](https://archiveofourown.org/users/horaetio/pseuds/horaetio) for beta reading for me!! Also, she usually reads my first drafts, so any lingering grammatical errors are my own fault!

_Hawkeye is operating in Korea when mud starts to pour into the tent. It’s not a landslide; the mud doesn’t overtake the room quickly. Instead, it creeps in slowly but surely, first up to everyone’s ankles, then beginning to climb up their shins. Hawkeye can’t tell where it’s coming from, but he’s worried, because if it gets near their patients, that’ll mean infections for sure. He keeps trying to ask everyone else about it, but they’re all ignoring him. Or maybe it’s that they can’t hear him. He’s not quite sure. So he keeps operating, racing against the mud, his sense of dread growing every minute. Hours go by, and the mud gets higher. They could move the patients, if someone would just listen to him. They could find out where it’s coming from. But no one listens, and nothing changes, and the mud gets higher, and Hawkeye is powerless to do anything about it._

He wakes up with a start, looking around in confusion before realizing that he’s in San Francisco, that he’s on B.J.’s couch. He lies there for a minute, just trying to compose himself. Trying to let go of the feeling that something’s wrong. Dreams like that are almost, somehow, worse than some of his more clearly horrifying ones; he knows that if he tried to explain this one to anyone else, he wouldn’t be able to properly convey just _why_ , exactly, he found it so terrible. The way that it stretched on and on, his dread growing in the face of his powerlessness – he would’ve rather had some nightmare about a shell exploding nearby and woken up in a cold sweat. At least that one would’ve been over with quickly. With this one, he’s left to sit with the feeling of it, knowing that trying to tell anyone else about it won’t do any good.

Still, after a few minutes pass, he can feel his heart rate returning to normal. Somehow, waking up in B.J.’s house makes it better. Even though B.J.’s all the way down at the other end of the hall, not a few feet away on a cot, just knowing that he gets to spend the whole day with B.J. makes it easier for Hawkeye to get up and start his day.

He gets up and goes into the kitchen, then just stands there for a minute, considering. Part of him wants to start making breakfast for B.J. and himself. He realizes that he never had a proper dinner last night—just the cake—and he’s starving. He also realizes that this will be practically the first decent meal that he and B.J. have ever eaten together, aside from the once or twice they found themselves together in Tokyo. He wants to take some active part in making it. He wants—well, what he really wants is to play house, to make B.J. breakfast and bring it to him in bed, like it’s their anniversary, not the first day they’ve spent together in years.

But this isn’t his house. This is B.J.’s house. The house that he shared, for many years, with Peggy. It’s a weird feeling, being a guest here. Back in Korea, when B.J. and Hawkeye had both been stuck there without any real control, it had been _together_ that they’d managed to make the Swamp feel at least a little bit like something that was _theirs_. They’d shared everything, right down to their clothes. And now here Hawkeye is, just passing through B.J.’s well-established life, unsure if he should cook in B.J.’s kitchen.

He doesn’t know where the pots and pans are, doesn’t know if there’s one that he’s not supposed to use. He doesn’t know if there’s a burner that gets too hot, or one that takes too long to heat up. He doesn’t know the rules, the little tricks of living here. So he decides not to try to cook anything. There’s a few bananas sitting out on the counter, and he grabs one of those to eat while he waits for B.J. to get up. He gets his book, _All Quiet on the Western Front_ , and sits at the kitchen table reading.

Luckily, he doesn’t have to wait long; B.J. gets up about half an hour later, walking blearily into the room in a very skimpy bathrobe, one that much more closely resembles the satin one he used to wear when he first rolled into Korea, rather than the longer one he wore later on. This one’s also got flowers all over it, and is almost too short for Hawkeye to bear.

“I see you’re back to showing off a bit of leg in the morning,” Hawkeye says to B.J., trying to sound disinterested and continuing to read his book.

“What?” B.J. says, then looks down. “Oh, yeah. New robe. Do you like it?” He grins as he asks the last question, doing a little spin to show it off.

“It’s alright,” Hawkeye says, by which he means, _I almost can’t look directly at you right now._

“Have you eaten anything yet? Have you had any coffee?” B.J. asks. Hawkeye shakes his head at both questions. B.J. continues, “I hope you weren’t waiting for me. I should’ve said last night that you can help yourself to anything. My home is your home.” Hawkeye doesn’t want to admit how badly he wants those words to be true. “Well, I can make eggs for us, if you want?”

“That sounds great,” Hawkeye says. He starts to stand up, saying, “Can I help?”

“No, no, sit down. You’re my guest. Let me cook for you,” B.J. says. Hawkeye doesn’t want B.J. to cook for him. He doesn’t want to be a guest. He wants to stand crammed next to the stovetop together, arguing about what frying pan to use, because he wants to know each frying pan of this house intimately. He wants to know which one has the wobbly handle, and which one is supposedly non-stick but always seems to burn everything.

But he’s just a guest. So he settles back down and says, “Okay, thanks.”

B.J. starts puttering around the kitchen, smiling to himself, getting out eggs and milk, putting on water to boil for coffee, putting bread in the toaster, turning on the stovetop. “What’re you reading?” he asks as he puts butter into the pan.

“Oh, this?” Hawkeye says, sort of holding up his book. “ _All Quiet on the Western Front._ ”

“What the hell are you reading that for?” B.J. says. He dumps the eggs, and a splash of milk, into the pan.

“Oh, I don’t know. I think it’s interesting. I was reading _Storm and Steel_ before this one. I thought about reading _War and Peace_ , but if you can’t make your point in under a thousand pages, I don’t really want to hear it.”

“We get home from one war, and you want to spend the next two years of your life reading about other ones? I don’t get it, Hawk.”

“What is there to get? It’s just some book I’m reading. Look, I’m putting it down right now,” Hawkeye says, laying the book face-down on the kitchen table in order to keep his place. “So, what are we gonna do today? Ride the cable cars up and down the hills of San Francisco?”

B.J. laughs. “We can if you want. I have a question, though. Have you ever seen the Pacific ocean?”

“Well, no.”

“Well, we definitely have to get you down there at some point soon. There’s also Chinatown, and walking across the Golden Gate Bridge, and then there’s Golden Gate Park—which has got the De Young, and the California Academy of Sciences, and the Japanese Tea Garden. Well, and also, there’s—well, how would you want to get out of the city for a minute later this week, maybe go camping up in the Sierras or the redwoods or something?”

Hawkeye laughs. “That all sounds great, Beej, but don’t you have to work at some point?”

“I took the whole week off,” B.J. says.

“Aw, you didn’t have to do that just for me,” Hawkeye says.

“Of course I did!” B.J. says. “Your first trip out to California! It’s a momentous occasion! Plus, I’ve basically taken no vacation the whole two years I’ve been there, so my boss gave it to me without _that_ much of a problem.”

Hawkeye feels a little twinge somewhere within him. Radio silence on his end, and now here’s B.J., taking all this time off work for him, bending over backwards for him, so happy to see him. Selfishly, though, Hawkeye’s glad for it.

“So,” B.J. says, finishing up the eggs and dishing them out onto two plates, adding the toast, and bringing everything over to the table. He then runs back over for the coffees and the jam before finally settling down. “So,” he repeats, once he’s seated. “What do you wanna do today?”

The thought of a whole day with B.J. spreading out before him—a whole _week_ —one where there won’t be any unexpected announcements about wounded coming in over the loudspeaker, where they can go wherever they want without having to beg Potter for a pass; Hawkeye almost feels high on the luxury of it. He wants to go out and see the whole city, and he also wants to stay here all day, drinking coffee, talking, just marveling in being this close to B.J. again.

“Well, this wasn’t on the list, but I’d really like to just see the neighborhood. You grew up around here, right?” Hawkeye asks.

“Yeah,” B.J. says.

“Well, I’d love my own little personalized tour. The neighborhood parks, your elementary school. The whole shebang.”

Hawkeye almost can’t believe he’s saying it out loud. It feels to him almost as good as an admission of love; _I flew across the country, and I don’t really care about the Golden Gate. Show me where you killed time when you were a kid. I want to imagine we knew each other when we were young._

B.J., to Hawkeye’s relief, seems game. He laughs and says, “I don’t know if it’s all that interesting, but sure, I’ll show you around. That’ll kill the morning, and then, maybe—well, I’ve got this friend—how do you feel about boats?”

“You know I love sailing,” Hawkeye says. “My dad used to take me out all the time.”

“I thought we could maybe borrow my friend Tommy’s boat, then head over to Pier 23 for din—well, except…”

“Except what?” Hawkeye says.

“Well, Pier 23 is kind of. You know. It’s got great seafood for cheap, and a view of the bay, and live piano music, but it’s also. Well. People tend to drink there.”

Hawkeye rolls his eyes. “People tend to drink everywhere,” he says. “I’m sure every restaurant in town’s got a drink menu. I don’t want my little problem to make you feel like you’ve got to be my keeper or something, keep me locked in my tower away from all temptation.”

B.J. hesitates. In truth, the fact that they serve alcohol at practically every place he used to frequent before the war is a part of why he’s been staying in so much, in addition to his newfound discomfort around people. And he knows taking Hawkeye to some place like Pier 23 will only encourage Hawkeye’s own drinking. The problem is, Hawkeye’ right. Practically anywhere in town that has a nightlife also has alcohol. And B.J.’s tired. He’s tired of staying in. Having Hawkeye here, he wants to let himself pretend, for a moment, that his life is what it once was. He wants to go back to when being in a crowd of people made him feel full up of happiness, not fear, to when he didn’t have to worry about whether anyone would stay sober or not.

He doesn’t want Hawkeye’s visit to be one where he worries and nags, one where they have no fun at all. He wants to show Hawkeye a good time. And if that means going out somewhere that serves drinks, well—B.J.’s not oblivious. He knows Hawkeye showed up drunk on his doorstep last night. B.J.’s guess is, Hawk’s going to find a way to drink no matter what the circumstances, so B.J. may as well not hem and haw about it, ruining the visit in the process.

So B.J. says, “Great! I’ll give Tommy a call here, in a minute, and check that it’s alright that we take the boat out.”

Tommy is the friend of B.J.’s that he’s maybe seen the most after returning from Korea, despite his new aversion to most socializing. Tommy and B.J. go way back – not only did they grow up together, but Tommy started dating Lucy (the woman who’s now his wife) at around the same time B.J. started dating Peggy. Both couples had their first kid at around the same time, too. Before they had kids, B.J. and Tommy used to take the girls out sailing practically every weekend before the war. After all the changes in B.J.’s life—the war, the divorce, and so forth—Tommy and Lucy are two of the few people that B.J. still feels pretty comfortable around.

Other than when he’s alone, B.J. feels the closest to being able to be himself when he’s around Tommy and Lucy. Closer, even, than he feels with Hawkeye. In some ways, Hawkeye knows B.J. better than anyone else in his life. At the same time, though, B.J. always has to be so careful to keep Hawk from realizing just _how much_ their relationship means to him, from realizing that B.J. wishes they were more to each other than just _good friends._ With Tommy and Lucy, the worry he feels about being _found out_ is less sharp, less constant, than it is with Hawkeye, although he’d never go as far as to actually confess his homosexual tendencies to them.

It’s probably partly because they’ve known him so long, and partly because they’re both naturally warm and gregarious people, but whatever the reason – they seem to know what questions to ask and what questions to avoid, to know when they can get B.J. up and dancing versus when he’s only in the mood for a quiet dinner. It also helps that Erin is good friends with Percy, Tommy and Lucy’s son. B.J. may be all too comfortable isolating himself, but he’s made sure to keep Erin connected to her friends.

Part of him wants to introduce Lucy and Tommy to Hawkeye – he thinks they’d all get along, and he feels an odd sort of pride, almost, at the thought of being able to show Hawkeye off to them, and vice versa. But part of him is scared that Lucy and Tommy, knowing him so well, would see straight through to the heart of B.J.’s feelings about Hawkeye. Luckily, it’s a moot point for today; B.J. is familiar enough with both Tommy and Lucy’s work schedules to know that they won’t be able to go out sailing. But Tommy’s told B.J. just about a thousand times that he’s free to borrow the boat whenever he likes. This won’t be the first time B.J.’s taken him up on the offer.

So while B.J. introduces the idea of borrowing the boat to Hawkeye, he decides not to offer up any details about his relationship with Tommy and Lucy. He’s afraid that if he does, Hawk might get curious, ask to get introduced. He’s not sure just how interested Hawk is in meeting any of his friends, and given B.J.’s own anxieties about the prospect, he figures he’ll avoid the subject if he can.

Hawkeye and B.J. lapse into a brief silence, both of them finishing up what’s left of their breakfasts. When they’re done, Hawkeye gets up, grabbing B.J.’s plate as well as his own and saying, “Let me do the dishes, since you cooked. That way you can call up this Tommy guy and check about the boat.”

“Alright,” B.J. says. “Thanks.”

He makes his way out of the kitchen and up the stairs, where there’s just one room, a small office that looks out onto the roof. B.J. should probably turn it into a guest room at some point. For now, he’s just grateful that he’s got a second phone in here, so he doesn’t have to make the call in front of Hawk. Knowing that Tommy will probably be busy with shipments down at the docks all day and not have much time for a phone call, B.J. flips through his rolodex for Lucy’s office number instead. He’s almost certain there’ll be no problem with him taking the boat out, but he wants to be polite and ask anyway.

Lucy’s secretary picks up, but luckily Lucy’s free, and she transfers B.J.

“B.J.!” Lucy says.

“Hey, Lucy,” B.J. says. “Sorry to call you at the office, but I just wanted to check about taking the boat out.”

“Oh, that,” she says. “You know you don’t have to ask. But yes, it’s fine for you to take it out. How are you, by the way? It’s been a minute or two since we last got you over here for dinner.”

“I’m good,” B.J. says. “Just busy this week with a friend in town, a buddy from the war.” _A buddy from the war?_ B.J. thinks. _That’s how I’m choosing to describe him?_

“Anyone I’d recognize the name of?” Lucy asks.

“It’s Hawkeye,” B.J. says. “I think I’ve mentioned him once or twice.” B.J. had been reluctant to talk about Hawkeye that much, after getting back, for obvious reasons: his radio silence, B.J.’s broken heart.

Still, Lucy seems to recognize the name immediately. “Oh, Hawkeye,” she says. “Of course! I’m so glad to hear he’s in town. How long is he staying?”

“Well, I’m not sure, exactly,” B.J. says. “At least the week.”

“Well, we’ve got to meet him. I’m sure Tommy would agree. How about bringing him around for dinner this Saturday night?”

B.J. hesitates. He should’ve known Lucy would want to meet any friend of his that came through town. And now that she’s asked the question, he doesn’t want to insult her by saying no, not when there’s no good reason he can provide for turning her down. As he’s thinking this, Lucy laughs into the phone, saying, “Unless there’s some reason you want to keep him all to yourself.”

“No,” B.J. says quickly. Maybe too quickly. “No, dinner on Saturday sounds great!”

“The usual time?” she says. “Seven?”

“Yeah, seven’s good.”

“Well, good. You two have fun out on the boat today, and we’ll see you here at seven Saturday.”

“See you then,” B.J. says, and hangs up the phone, wondering what he’s just gotten himself into. He decides not to spoil his first full day with Hawkeye by worrying about it, though. There’s still plenty of time before Saturday. So, doing his best to push the dinner date to the back of his mind, he makes his way back downstairs. He finds Hawkeye just finishing up the last of the dishes. It’s a homey scene; B.J. can’t help thinking how well Hawkeye seems to fit into his kitchen. He lets himself imagine, just for a moment, that this is a regular occurrence, that Hawkeye’s moved in, that they’ve had days and days of breakfasts together, and dishes to be done, and sailing trips to be undertaken.

As B.J.’s lingering in the doorway, getting lost in this train of thought, Hawkeye turns around and smiles at him. “Ready to go?” Hawk asks.

“Yep,” B.J. says, smiling back at him.

They make their way out onto the street. B.J.’s surprised to see that the fog’s already burned off. It must have been raining throughout the night, and cleared up just in time for morning, because there’s that particular smell in the air, and glint on the sidewalk, that always follows a heavy rain. B.J. is suddenly, sharply aware of being alive, and it’s all he can do to stop himself from putting his arm through Hawkeye’s and just walking down the street like that.

They kill most of the morning just walking around. They see Clement Street, B.J.’s old school, and Emanu-El, where many of his friends got bar mitzvahed. A few blocks away from Emanu-El, they pass a house that makes B.J. stop and sigh fondly as he says, “Oh, Judy.”

“Wait, what?” Hawk says. “Judy? Who’s Judy?”

B.J. relishes Hawkeye’s curiosity for a minute, even plays into it, letting himself imagine, briefly, that it’s jealousy. He gives Hawk a mysterious smile, not saying anything, before finally telling him, “Oh, I had the biggest crush on her in elementary school.”

“You pull on her pigtails?”

“She pulled on mine.”

“Did anything ever come of it?” Hawkeye says as they start walking again.

“In fact, something did,” B.J. says. “She kissed me one time behind the art building, after school. My first kiss.”

“So you were a ladies’ man from a very young age, then, is what you’re saying?”

B.J. laughs. “That is _not_ what I’m saying. She may have kissed me, but she started dating Tommy about a week later.”

“Tommy, as in the Tommy whose boat we’re borrowing?”

“Exactly,” B.J. says.

“Well, Judy’s a fool, going for Tommy when she could’ve had you.”

“Yeah, but you don’t know Tommy. _I’d_ have gone for him, given the chance,” B.J. jokes. Even as he says it, his heart skips a beat. Because it’s not really just a joke. At some point after coming home from Korea, B.J. realized that there was a long while when what he’d felt for Tommy was, well, more than friendly. The crush has long since passed—even if B.J. hadn’t fallen hard for Hawk, there would still be the small detail of Tommy’s marriage to contend with—but even so, he almost can’t believe he’s coming so close to admitting the truth of it to Hawk. Then again, jokes like this are a dime a dozen when it comes to their relationship, something that’s always frustrated as much as it’s comforted B.J. 

Even as B.J. feels like he’s experiencing just about every human emotion in the span of the few seconds, Hawkeye laughs. “See, these are the kinds of salacious details I wouldn’t have gotten if we’d done something more tourist-y this morning. I can’t ask just _any_ old tour guide about their first kiss.”

“Well, you _could_ ask them,” B.J. says, “but it’d probably be inadvisable.”

They keep walking, heading back over to B.J.’s apartment. As they make their way up his dead-end street, and the presidio wall comes back into view, B.J. says, “You know, when I was a teenager, we used to build tree houses in the presidio and have parties up there.”

“You didn’t,” Hawkeye says, looking delighted.

“We absolutely did,” B.J. says.

“And what did the MPs think of that?”

“Well, they didn’t like it, but their jurisdiction is over the presidio only. When you saw them coming, you’d hop down and start running, and you only had to make it as far as that wall”—he points to the end of the block—“before you were home safe. Some kids would even stand on the other side of it after they made it over, taunting them. God, I remember some kid my junior year drinking too much and falling out of one of the tree houses. He broke his back. After that, our parents all sort of got wind of it and tried their best to shut it down.”

“I can’t believe you never told me this before,” Hawkeye says, looking delighted. “So you’ve always had a bit of an alcohol-fueled, anti-military bent to you.”

B.J. laughs. “Pretty much.”

“Too bad,” Hawkeye says. “I thought _I_ was the one responsible for all your bad habits.”

“Don’t worry,” B.J. says. “You certainly did your part to encourage them.”

At this, though, Hawkeye seems to deflate, dropping his joking demeanor. “I did, didn’t I?” he says. He stops walking. “Beej—I mean, you showed up, fresh-faced to Korea, and there I was, just dying to get a martini glass into your hands. If that had something to do with—I mean, if I was the one that got you—and then the divorce—I mean—“

He can’t quite seem to articulate his point, but B.J. knows Hawkeye, and his guilt complex, well enough to guess. “Hawk, please,” B.J. says. “My marriage fell apart for a lot of reasons. Drinking wasn’t one of them. Besides, don’t go getting full of yourself, thinking all of my dysfunction can be traced back to you. I worked too hard cultivating it in Korea to have you take all the credit.”

Hawkeye smiles hesitantly. “Well, in that case,” he says. “it’s true that I’m a master of dysfunction, but I won’t claim credit for such a magnificent piece of work as yourself.”

B.J. smiles. “Come on, you smart aleck. Let’s head down to the docks. We’ve got some sailing to do.” By this point, they’re stopped on the sidewalk directly outside B.J.’s house.

“Sounds good,” Hawkeye says.

“Do you want to take my bike?” B.J. asks, already opening up the garage.

“Fine with me,” Hawkeye replies. If he’s being honest, the thought of riding on the back of a motorcycle in a crowded city makes him a little nervous, but that’s outweighed by the fact that it’ll be an excuse to wrap his arms around B.J. and hold on tight. The ride is as exhilarating as it is terrifying, and soon enough, they’ve arrived at the marina. They make their way off the motorcycle and onto the pier. Hawkeye pauses and just gazes out over the ocean: it’s darker and much less calm than the Atlantic. B.J. claps him on the shoulder, saying, “Come on, don’t just stand there staring! Let’s get out on it!”

They make their way to Tommy’s boat and work in surprising tandem. Or maybe it’s not so surprising. Hawkeye thinks back to when they’d operate together, or how B.J. would hold his yarn when he used to knit, or the pranks they would orchestrate. There’s an easy rhythm that he and B.J. always seem to fall into, no matter the task at hand. But still, every time, Hawkeye finds it a little thrilling. As if the universe is saying to him: _Here he is. You’ve found your person._ Not that he could ever say anything to B.J., of course. Still, today he lets himself hope that maybe this wordless synchronicity will speak for itself, that maybe B.J. feels it too, the heady pleasure of falling back into place.

Because they work so well together, and because conditions are good, they’re out in the bay soon enough. Hawkeye leans over the side of the boat and plunges a hand into the ocean. He pulls it out a second later, shivering. “That’s cold,” he says.

“It’s pretty much like that even dead summer,” B.J. says. “It’s colder now, but it’s never warm. Not this far north.”

“You’re talking like we’re in Alaska or something,” Hawkeye says, “not central California.”

B.J. laughs. He’s steering them over toward the Golden Gate, so Hawkeye can get a view from the water. B.J. looks happy. Truly happy. It’s funny, but B.J. didn’t talk about sailing that much, in Korea. Hawkeye knew B.J. sailed, but he’d never really pictured it, how in-his-element B.J. would look. It’s bittersweet; it’s a glimpse into a side of B.J. that he doesn’t know, a reminder that B.J. spent much of his life without Hawkeye there. And yet here he is, sharing it with Hawk now, at least for the weekend. Hawkeye wonders what else might be hiding somewhere in B.J., as of yet unknown to him.

It’s an easy day out on the water. Mostly, they trade stories back and forth about sailing, about fishing. They both seem reluctant to try and catch up on the last few years. For now, it’s nice to just have this: stories from their past, ones that maybe don’t mean much, but that they want to share anyway. Seeing how happy it’s making B.J. makes Hawk happy too, and maybe, he hopes, vice versa.

Finally, when it starts to get dark, B.J. pulls the boat in and docks it at Pier 23. “Come on,” he tells Hawkeye, and they both climb a short ways up the ladder to the pier itself. The restaurant is sitting there right over the water, and when they walk in, it’s full of noise and people and live piano music. Everyone is having a good time, eating, and, well, drinking. Everyone is definitely drinking. They’re even crowded around the piano, buying drinks for the pianist, although it doesn’t seem to be affecting his playing.

They push through the crowds to find a table and begin looking over the menu. Hawkeye can’t help himself – he’s eying the drinks menu, not just looking at the food options. The last time he was really in a city, aside from the night spent at Margaret and Charles’ place, was Tokyo. After so long of staying in Crabapple and shrinking his social circle, being here with B.J., among all these people, reminds him that he’s _not_ , by nature, a recluse. He likes this. He likes the energy, and the laughter, and the noise, and he likes the way it feels like he and B.J. are in their own secret center of it. And he knows that if he drinks just one or two drinks, it’ll make the whole room feel just a little warmer, that there’ll be this “click” into a joy that feels like it just might stretch on out into forever, at least until morning rolls around and breaks the spell.

He doesn’t say any of this aloud, of course. Instead, he just tells B.J., “I see they’ve got a lot of seafood on the menu. I don’t know if I trust you Californians to compete with Maine on that front.”

“Don’t knock it till you try it,” B.J. says.

“Oh, don’t worry. I like to try everything at least once.”

“Oh, really?” B.J. says.

Hawkeye is saved from having to reply when a waiter comes over and takes their orders. B.J. gets a shrimp cocktail, and Hawkeye gets cracked crab. “And what are those cocktails everyone’s drinking?” Hawkeye asks. “You know, since I’m not having a _shrimp_ cocktail.”

“Black Russians,” the waiter says.

“I’ll have one of those,” Hawkeye says. He’s found that if he acts as casual as possible about his drinking, people usually don’t say anything.

Still, he can’t help feeling guilty as soon as the waiter leaves, which must show on his face, because B.J. just raises his eyebrows and says, “What? I’m not saying anything.”

For a while, they don’t even talk that much, both caught up in listening to the music and chatter around them. When the food comes, Hawkeye does a theatrical little grimace at B.J.’s shrimp. “What?” B.J. says. “You don’t like shrimp?”

“Can’t stand the things,” Hawkeye says. “Can’t stand the texture.”

“Are you _suuuuure_ you don’t want one?” B.J. says, waving a shrimp in front of Hawkeye. Hawkeye makes another face and pushes it away.

“Come on, you’re going to ruin my appetite before I even get the chance to try some of this supposedly-delectable California crab.”

“Well, we can’t have that,” B.J. says, leaving Hawk alone and eating the shrimp himself.

Watching Hawkeye eat is a peculiar pleasure for B.J., perhaps because Hawkeye’s so particular about it. He sniffs the crab dramatically before he even deigns to take a bite, declaring, “Well, it _smells_ fine.”

B.J. laughs. “Hawk, you’re embarrassing me,” he says, but really he loves it. It’s just like in Korea. Some things haven’t changed, then.

Watching Hawkeye drink, B.J. has to admit he wants to join in. It’s not just the taste of it, and the feelings that comes with; it’s the excuse to touch Hawkeye later, to lean into him, grab at his shirt. B.J.’s glad that he knows he has to sail Tommy’s boat back later, then drive them both home on the motorcycle. It’s maybe the only thing stopping him from drinking, right now.

Hawkeye certainly has no such hold ups, though, and he drinks a few Black Russians, eventually going over and asking the piano player, Burt Bales, if he knows “Button Up Your Overcoat.”

At this point, B.J. decides it’s time for them to leave. He goes over and apologizes to Burt, leaving him a generous tip before leading Hawk out the door. Hawkeye is clinging to B.J.’s shirt like he’s done many times before—like in Korea, like last night up the stairs—but B.J. is somehow suddenly worried about it, here, in front of all these people. No one bats an eye, though, as B.J and Hawkeye make their way back out onto the pier.

“Where’s our boat?” Hawkeye says, voice full of concern.

B.J. laughs. “The tide’s gone out, is all. We’ll just have to climb farther down the ladder this time.”

Hawkeye leans over the dock, trying to get a look at how far down their boat is, and it starts to look like he might actually topple off the pier into the water. B.J. feels his heart start, a spike of adrenaline in his blood, and he reaches out and grabs Hawkeye, pulling him back off the edge and instinctually into his arm.

“You saved me,” Hawkeye jokes in mock awe, putting a hand on B.J.’s chest to steady himself. “How can I ever repay you?”

“Just do me a favor, and don’t fall off the pier,” B.J. says gruffly. It’s all he can really manage to get out. Hawkeye doesn’t make any effort to move out of B.J.’s arms, and they’re standing there, in the dark on the edge of the pier, practically in an embrace. Anyone passing by, B.J. thinks, might easily mistake them for two lovers. “Come on,” he tells Hawkeye, finally pulling away himself. “Let’s get you home. I’ll go first down the ladder, so that if you fall – well, I probably won’t be able to do anything about it, but you’ll probably fall onto me and feel really guilty about it, at least.”

“I did meatball surgery in Korea,” Hawkeye says. “I’m sure I can manage to climb down a ladder while slightly intoxicated.”

“I don’t know,” B.J. says, beginning his descent. “Physical agility has never been your strong suit.”

Hawkeye begins to climb down after him, saying indignantly, “ _Physical agility has never been_ —you don’t know anything _about_ my physical agility.”

B.J.’s glad Hawk can’t see him blushing in the dark.

***

When they get down into the boat, Hawkeye lies down, flat on his back, letting B.J. do all the work of actually sailing the damn thing. B.J. doesn’t seem to mind, though. Hawkeye can see fewer stars here than he can in Crabapple, but the sounds of the waves, combined with knowing that it’s B.J. steering the boat, makes him relish the moment nonetheless. _I’m in a whole new ocean_ , he thinks to himself. _Thirty-two years old, and I end up in an ocean I’ve never seen before._ He wants B.J. to just keep going, sail them straight out into some open-sea fairy tale.

But B.J. doesn’t, of course. They dock soon enough, and Hawkeye finds himself back on B.J.’s motorcycle, arms around B.J. once again. He wants everyone to see them. As though, if enough strangers mistake what he and B.J. have for love, it’ll really make it true. _The last time I was on one of his bike like this,_ Hawk thinks, _we were saying goodbye. Maybe forever. But it wasn’t forever._ Time feels all jumbled up in his head, for a second, and he’s not even really sure which city B.J.’s driving him through, but soon enough, B.J.’s pulling the bike up outside his house. They’ve arrived. _Home_ , Hawkeye thinks for a second, before reminding himself that that isn’t true.

B.J. puts the bike in the garage, and, just like the night before, they find themselves stumbling up the stairs in the dark. Hawkeye has to remind himself that B.J. is stone-cold sober, to remind himself not do anything too stupid; when Hawk gets drunk like this, he often makes the mistake of assuming everyone else around him feels the same way.

Given everything they’ve done today—B.J. taking him around his childhood neighborhood, Hawkeye teasing him about his first kiss, the two of them spending the day out on the boat and having dinner on the pier—it’d be easy for Hawk to let himself mistake the day for a date. And he does, a little bit. He lets himself pretend B.J. is gong to stop and kiss him in the hallway, then lead him to bed. But then he snaps himself out of it, so that he doesn’t say anything really stupid to B.J., like, “I love you.”

Still, he wants the evening to last longer, so he asks B.J., “So, what do you do instead of a nightcap now?”

“I drink warm milk, then go to bed early,” B.J. says. When Hawkeye makes a face, B.J. lets his own serious expression drop and says, “Just kidding. Decaf coffee, usually. You want some? Or we’ve even got the caffeinated stuff, if you want to go really crazy and sober up a bit.”

“Decaf is fine. I try and stay away from the hard stuff,” Hawkeye jokes. He follows B.J. into the kitchen, watching as B.J. puts on water to boil. Hawkeye sits at the kitchen table; B.J. leans against the counter, as if he wants a buffer between them, for some reason. Maybe Hawkeye’s just reading into it too much; B.J.’s probably just waiting until after he’s done making coffee before he sits down. Still, in Hawkeye’s drunken state, something about having the barrier of the counter between them, after the euphoria of being so close on the pier and on the motorcycle, makes him worry that the happiness he’s felt all night will be all-too-fleeting. His mind goes back to what he’s been trying to avoid acknowledging the last few days; he remembers, again, that Peggy used to live here, that she probably sat in this very chair, that she probably knows the friend whose boat they took out today. Hawkeye’s here to help his friend through a divorce, not play at falling in love. He remember the poem that brought him here. “Meditations in an Emergency.” Heartbreak laid bare.

But then, because he’s selfish, because he’s drunk and can’t help himself, he asks a question that he knows he shouldn’t. “Did you used to take Peggy there?”

“Where?” B.J. says, starting a little at the question.

“Pier 23.”

B.J. doesn’t want to answer the question. Yes, he used to take Peggy there. The city is full of places he used to take Peggy. It’s practically harder to avoid them on purpose than it is to stumble across one on accident. But it feels different, with Hawk. It feels like he’s reclaiming something he should’ve had before, some whirlwind of a romance that he had just been rehearsing for, up till now.

But he can’t say all that out loud. So all he says is, “Yes. Sometimes. But I went there with other people, too. Friends, and, you know.”

“What am I?” Hawk says.

“Huh?”

“Of the latter two categories. Am I ‘friends’? Or am I ‘you know’?”

_He can’t possibly be asking what I think he’s asking_ , B.J. tells himself. “Well, you’re ‘friends,’ I guess,” B.J. says.

“You guess? Or you know?”

“Are you sure you don’t need some real coffee?” B.J. says. “Of course you’re my friend, Hawk. You’re the best one I’ve got.”

“Best one you’ve got,” Hawkeye repeats, sort of crossing his arms as if B.J.’s said the wrong thing. B.J. doesn’t have time to dwell on whatever that might be, though, because the water starts to boil. After he’s through getting two cups of coffee ready, he brings them over to Hawkeye and sets them on the kitchen table. Hawkeye’s got his feet up on the second chair, so B.J. taps them, saying, “Scoot.” Hawkeye obliges, lifting his feet out of the way. As soon as B.J. sits down, though, Hawkeye puts his feet right back where they were, so that they’re resting in B.J.’s lap. As Hawkeye takes his first sip of coffee, he gives B.J. that little grin of his, the one that he saves for when he’s feeling really pleased with himself, when he’s just done something ludicrous, and he knows no one will challenge him on it.

_Did we always do things like this in Korea?_ B.J. thinks. _Did we sit this close? Maybe when we were drunk._ He can’t really remember, on account of having been drunk.

“Seems like in the war, we were always dying to get as much sleep as we could, and now here we are, putting off going to bed,” B.J. says. He usually hates talking about the war. In fact, he usually doesn’t talk about it at all, not with anyone else. Not even with Margaret, when she calls. But with Hawkeye, it seems important to talk about it. To say, _Remember that place where I found you? Where you found me?_ To remember that it wasn’t all a dream, some other life.

“I never sleep anymore. Not if I can help it,” Hawkeye says.

“Don’t tell me you’ve been getting nightmares again,” B.J. says.

Hawkeye nods. “Worse than before. Worse than during the war. I mean, some of them individually are less bad. But they’re just so persistent. They won’t go away.” B.J. can tell Hawk’s trying to sound casual, to just kind of play it off as not a huge deal, but he looks tired as he says it. _Oh, Hawk,_ B.J. thinks. He wishes he could get Hawk on the table, open him up, cut out the part that hurts. As B.J.’s searching for what to say, Hawkeye fills the silence. “Do you ever worry that you’re really fucked up? Like they did something to you over there—or you did something to yourself, or to someone else—that you just can’t get away from?”

“I do,” B.J. says evenly. He’s suddenly a little regretful about having made coffee, about not having suggested they both just go to bed. He can tell that the late hour, combined with the amount that Hawkeye drank tonight, is doing Hawkeye’s mood no favors.

“It just feels like this black hole,” Hawkeye says. “Like, before, my life was going in a straight line. Linear time. One event after another. But now, it’s just circling around Korea. It’s always there, in the center of everything. Like its gravity is so big that it pulled everything else out of orbit. Even the stuff that happened before it, you know? Like, when I decided to go pre-med. You know, that was leading me there.”

_It was also leading you to me_ , B.J. thinks, but he hates himself for thinking it. He doesn’t believe in that “everything happens for a reason” shit. Way too many people died over there—the horrors that his country inflicted on civilians—there’s no sense to that, no larger plan. B.J. supposes he knows a bit of what Hawk means, about the black hole. He feels like there’s something hollow right in the center of him, sometimes.

But he worries it was there before the war, that it stems from something else entirely. He lays awake at night, sometimes, and scares himself, not by thinking of the war, but just by thinking of Hawkeye, by wondering what would’ve happened if he’d never met him. It’s just a void stretching out before him, when he tries to picture it. But needing another person that much, having been so irrevocably changed by them – B.J. doesn’t really know what to do with that.

“I don’t know, Hawk,” B.J. says finally. “I’m not like Sidney with this stuff. I think we just have to do our best to keep going, and hope someday we’ll manage to leave all that behind us. Break out of its orbit, or something.”

“I’m just not sure I’m doing my best,” Hawkeye says softly. “I’m not sure I know how.”

B.J. laughs. “I’m not sure you know how to do anything _but_ your best. Maybe _that’s_ your problem.”

B.J. laughing seems to snap Hawkeye out of whatever spiral he’d caught himself in. He sits up a little and says, “Ah, hell, listen to me. Sitting here in your kitchen, feeling sorry for myself. You should take me by the ear and throw me out.”

Seeing Hawkeye perk up a bit, B.J. decides maybe it’ll be good for both of them to get some sleep, to not leave Hawkeye time for his mood to swing downwards again. “I’m not going to throw you out, but I _am_ going to bed, seeing as it’s two am,” B.J. says, removing Hawk’s feet from his lap, so he can stand up and put his coffee cup in the sink.

“Good idea,” Hawkeye says, standing up and following suit. “I guess I can at least _try_ to sleep.”

After Hawk says this, though, the two of them linger in the kitchen a moment longer, as if waiting for something. For what, exactly, B.J.’s not sure. He wants to hug Hawkeye again, like he did the night before, but he feels guilty for even wanting it.

“Well,” Hawkeye says, after a moment. “Goodnight.” He makes his way back past the kitchen table, out the swinging door, and into the living room. B.J. makes his way to the other end of his narrow kitchen and out the door on the opposite end, into the even-narrower hallway that runs the length of his house, and into his bedroom.

His bedroom’s been sparse every since Peggy left – he didn’t realize how many of her knick knacks had filled up the space, how many homey touches had been hers, until she moved out. But in the corner of his room, hanging on a chair, is the jacket he’s been making for Hawk. B.J. knows he should have given it to Hawkeye by now; he knows that’s the whole reason he’s been working on it for so long. But he can’t quite seem to make himself do it. Besides, he tells himself, it’s not quite finished. There’s one sleeve he still wants to add more flowers to.

B.J. gives the jacket one long look before climbing into bed. Once he’s settled down for the night, though, it turns out that _he’s_ unable to go to sleep. He doesn’t even know what it is, really – the jacket, Hawkeye in his kitchen (and briefly in his arms at the pier), Tommy and Lucy… there’s no singular train of thought keeping him up, just a whole lot of different ones, racing through his brain all at once.

B.J. doesn’t know how long he lies there, unable to fall asleep, before he hears it; he hears Hawkeye scream. His heart racing, he leaps out of bed, an instinctual response. He _feels_ as if they’re back in the war, as if Hawk’s been hurt, even though he knows, intellectually, that it must be just a nightmare. After he makes it down the length of the hall, of course he finds Hawkeye unharmed but yelling in his sleep. B.J. sits down on the edge of the couch, simultaneously shaking Hawk awake and turning on the lamp that sits on the end table.

It takes a minute to pull Hawk out of whatever place he is. “Hawk,” B.J. keeps repeating. “I’m here. It’s me. B.J. You’re in San Francisco. You’re safe.”

Hawkeye sort of blinks up at B.J., finally waking up, but it takes him a minute longer to say anything. “B.J.,” he says, finally, and then, almost as if on instinct, he pulls B.J. to him in a wordless embrace. B.J.’s so grateful for that, for Hawk to give him something concrete he can do, for letting him just hold him. B.J. knows words often fall short after dreams like whatever Hawkeye’s just dreamed. He can feel Hawkeye shaking in his arms, can feel that he’s drenched in sweat, can feel Hawk’s heart pounding, pressed so close against his own. He wonders how often Hawkeye’s dreamed like that in the past two years with no one to wake him up, no one to hold onto him. He wonders if Hawk screamed like that last night, and he didn’t hear.

“One fucking day,” Hawkeye says finally. He mutters it into B.J.’s shoulder, not pulling away.

“What?” B.J. says.

“That’s how long it took me to fall apart. And I was having such a good day.”

“It’s okay,” B.J. says. “I had a good day too. This doesn’t ruin it, not for me. It’s okay.” He wants to pull back, just a little, just so he can brush the hair back from Hawk’s face. B.J.’s mom used to do that for him, when he had nightmares. It always made him feel safe. He wants to make Hawkeye feel safe. But he doesn’t know what’s allowed between them, what will make Hawk feel better and what might make things much worse.

Just as he’s wondering this, Hawkeye pulls away, out of his arms, sitting up more fully. B.J. stays sitting close to him on the couch, but Hawkeye’s not looking at him, just starting straight out ahead.

“Do you want to talk about it?” B.J. says.

“No,” Hawkeye says decisively. Then he pauses a minute before adding, “I want… I want a drink.”

B.J.’s not going to argue with Hawk about that, not here and now, but he also doesn’t have anything to offer him. “I mean—I don’t keep any—“

“I have some in my bag,” Hawkeye says. “There. On the floor.” He points, and when B.J. hesitates just a moment, Hawkeye stands up and gets it himself, pulling out a bottle of vodka and removing the cap to take one large swig. For a moment, B.J. think about how easy it would be to reach over and take a swig himself, but he doesn’t. Grimacing slightly, Hawkeye replaces the cap and puts the vodka back in his bag. 

The shot or so of vodka does seem to do the trick, in that Hawkeye seems to stop shaking so much, which B.J. is grateful for, anyway. There’s silence for a minute or two before Hawkeye says, “Well, now you know why I tend to put off sleep.”

“It’s nothing I haven’t seen before,” B.J. says softly.

“I guess I’ve always been a bit of a mess,” Hawkeye says. _My mess_ , B.J. thinks, but he doesn’t say it.

“ _Everyone’s_ messed up from the war, Hawk,” he says instead.

“Yeah, but not like me. Not ‘drink too much, wake up screaming every night’ messed up.”

“Well, you do always have to be the best at everything.”

“In this case, I think this may actually qualify for lagging behind.”

“Hawk, you saw what that war did to tons of men, not just you. Sidney wasn’t your personal retainer, you know,” B.J. says, a little hesitant. He’s unsure exactly what he can joke about when it comes to this. But the comment seems to make Hawk smile, just a little bit.

“I did my best to keep him employed, though,” Hawkeye says.

“Always going above and beyond to help out your friends.”

“Look, I don’t want to make you sit here all night and just hold my hand,” Hawkeye says. B.J. doesn’t know how to make himself say, _But I want to do just that._ Hawkeye continues, “It must be about four am at this point.”

“It’s okay,” B.J. says. “There’s always coffee tomorrow morning. I don’t want you to just have to sit here alone, or try and go right back to sleep after that.”

“I’m not one of your patients,” Hawkeye says. “it’s not your job to look after me.” B.J. doesn’t say anything in response to that. “Look, what I really want to do, actually, is to take a shower,” Hawkeye adds.

“Sure,” B.J. says. “Well, let me show you – I mean, it’s pretty self-explanatory, but here’s a trick with the hot water switch—“

He shows Hawkeye how the shower works, then anxiously goes to his bedroom; seeing the jacket on his chair, however, he decides that’s no good, and he makes his way back to the kitchen, turning on all the lights. Absurdly, he wants to drink more coffee, but he knows that’s a choice he’ll regret, so instead, he starts making a grilled cheese, just to have something to do.

He’s just finishing it up when Hawkeye comes into the kitchen, wearing that same red robe he had in Korea. B.J. laughs at the sight of it; he can’t help himself. “You still have that thing?” he says.

“What?” Hawkeye says defensively. “Did you think I would’ve thrown away the most comfortable robe I’ve ever had the pleasure of owning?” He looks much more himself again.

B.J. puts his hands up. “Sorry to assume.”

Hawkeye walks over and looks inquiringly into the pan where B.J.’s got the grilled cheese. “What’s that? A grilled cheese?”

“Uh huh,” B.J. says. “Want one?”

“So you’re a four am grilled cheese kind of man,” Hawkeye says. “I never would have known.”

“There’s a lot about me that might surprise you,” B.J. says. “Never assume.”

“Oh yeah? Like what, exactly, might surprise me?”

“Like the fact that I make a mean grilled cheese,” B.J. says, putting the grilled cheese onto a plate and handing it to Hawkeye, then turning off the stove.

Hawkeye doesn’t even bother to sit down, just holding the plate and taking a bite right there. “This _is_ good,” he says, eyes going a little wide. “What’s your secret?”

“I can’t tell you that,” B.J. says. “I’ve got to maintain my air of mystery, keep you coming back for more.”

“Well, it’s working,” Hawkeye says, mouth full. Then he holds the grilled cheese out to B.J., saying, “Wait, am I eating your grilled cheese?”

“Oh, I don’t really want it,” B.J. says. “You eat it.”

“No, come on,” Hawkeye says, ripping the sandwich awkwardly in half and holding one half out to B.J. “At least have half. otherwise I’ll feel bad.”

“Well, we can’t have that,” B.J. says, accepting the half from Hawkeye and taking a bite.

After both parties finish their grilled cheeses, B.J. says, “Look, why don’t you take my bed and let me take the couch for the rest of the night? Maybe you’ll be able to get some better sleep that way.”

“Beej, that’s downright chivalrous of you, but I’d feel bad, taking your bed.”

“Please, come on,” B.J. says. “It’ll make me feel better.

“No way. What kind of guest would I be, coming into your home and kicking you out of bed?”

“You’re not just any guest,” B.J. says. Then he adds, “You’re Hawkeye,” as if that explains it.

“No way,” Hawk says.

“No way, you’re not Hawkeye?”

“No way am I taking your bed.”

B.J. doesn’t really know how to explain what comes out of his mouth next. Maybe it’s that it’s four am, and he feels a delirious sort of exhaustion setting in. He wants to keep Hawkeye safe, and near him, and his inhibition are down. So he says, “Well, we could share it. The bed. It’s certainly big enough for two people.”

“We could—sorry, we could _share it_?” Hawkeye says.

B.J. keeps barreling ahead obstinately, thinking that maybe if he acts really casual about it, Hawkeye won’t call him on how much he sounded like a flaming homosexual just then, offering for Hawkeye to climb into bed with him. “Yeah, share it,” B.J. says. “You know, we shared a tent all those years in the army. Our cots were practically on top of each other. I don’t see how this is that much different.”

“You don’t—“

But B.J. cuts him off, afraid of what he’s going to say. “It’s four am, and we both need to get some rest, and rather than standing her arguing with you, I’d rather we share the bed.”

“The bed—that you used to share with Peg. Your wife,” Hawkeye sort of chokes out. He looks a bit like he’s short circuiting, and B.J.’s terrified that he’s done it, that he’s outed himself, and now Hawkeye’s going to ran as fast as possible the next chance he gets.

“Don’t be crass, Hawk,” B.J. says. “It wouldn’t be like with Peggy.” What he doesn’t say is, _It would be better._ “Anyway, I’m going to bed. Feel free to sleep wherever you’d like.” B.J. turns and walks out of the kitchen, not looking back. Heart pounding.

_I’ve fucked up. I’ve fucked up. I’ve fucked up,_ he keeps repeating to himself, as he crawls back into bed. _Now I’m **sure** I won’t be able to get any sleep._ He pulls the covers up and turns over, away from the door, to just stare out the window at the moon. _I should get up and close my shade,_ he thinks, but he doesn’t.

But after a minute or two of B.J. lying there, nearly paralyzed with fear, he hears the doorknob turn. He doesn’t turn around and look; he feels a dream-like logic overtaking him, like if he has to check that it’s really Hawkeye, Hawk will disappear. He doesn’t need to look. He knows, even as he can scarcely believe it. He hears Hawk climb into bed next to him, and he thinks maybe that’ll be the end of it, but then he hears Hawk say, into the dark. “You’re the most stubborn man I know.”

B.J. lets out a short laugh. “That’s rich, coming from you. Go sleep on the couch if you don’t like it.” He could almost cry from how grateful he is to have Hawk here, to know he hasn’t ruin everything between them irrevocably.

“No, I like it here,” Hawkeye says. “It’s really very comfortable. ‘Just right,’ as Goldilocks would say.”

“Go to sleep, Goldilocks,” B.J. says fondly.

“Night,” says Hawk. Hawk seems to drift off easily; B.J. hears his breaths become deep and even soon enough. But B.J. lies awake a while longer, eyes staring out into the darkness, distinctly aware of the other man’s presence, mere inches from him in his bed. Finally, though, he too feels his eyelids closing. He knows that tonight, he’ll sleep a dreamless sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I just make Tommy and Lucy, the characters from Martin Ritt's 1957 movie _Edge of the City_ , B.J.'s childhood friends? Maybe. Don't worry about it.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to [horaetio](https://archiveofourown.org/users/horaetio/pseuds/horaetio) for continuing to beta read for me!!!

Hawkeye wakes up late the next morning; he can tell by the quality of the light pouring in through the window. This isn’t the first thing he registers, though. The first thing he registers is that B.J., sometime during the night, drifted from his own side of the bed and is now using Hawkeye as a pillow, his head and one of his hands resting on Hawk’s chest. Hawk wonders, briefly, if he’s died and woken up in some other lifetime, because this surely can’t be happening. It’s too good. It’s too close to what he wants.

He thinks back to last night, when B.J. invited him into his bed. Hawk had just stood there, under the bright kitchen lights, for a long minute after B.J. left. Mind racing. _This can’t possibly mean what I think it means,_ and, _How can I take him up on his offer? _and _How can I not?_ In the end, it had been the look on B.J.’s face when he’d made the offer which had made up Hawkeye’s mind for him; B.J. had looked scared and a little defiant. _The bed you shared with Peggy. Don’t be crass._ Hawkeye wasn’t sure _what_ was going on with B.J., but the whole night felt so tenuous, like a dream Hawk wanted to stay in for a little while longer. The look on B.J.’s face – Hawk could tell if he didn’t make the right choice, something might change between them, irrevocably and for the worse. So even though Hawk didn’t know exactly what B.J.’d been thinking when he extended the offer, he took him up on it.__

__And now here he is, B.J. asleep on his chest. Like the morning after a date, except this time, unlike usual, Hawk isn’t dying to get out of here as fast as possible. In fact, were it possible for him to freeze time in just one moment and live there forever, he might choose this one. He just lies there, trying not to move, feeling B.J. breath, feeling delirious. All too soon, though, he feels B.J. beginning to stir. Feeling guilty, Hawkeye closes his eyes and pretends to be asleep. He feels B.J. quickly pulls away from him, rolling back over to the other side of the bed. At this point, Hawkeye pretends to wake up, hoping he does a convincing job of it._ _

__“Hey, Beej,” he says, grinning just a little, almost on reflex, to cover up all the other emotions he’s feeling underneath his genuine happiness. “How’d you sleep?”_ _

__“Oh, fine. Fine. You?” B.J. says, sitting up in bed as Hawk rolls onto one side, resting his head in his hand to look at B.J._ _

__“Oh, I slept great,” Hawkeye says. “Like I said last night, quite a comfortable bed you’ve got here.”_ _

__“Well, good,” B.J. says, and moves like he’s going to get up._ _

__“Oh, you’re just like all the others, aren’t you?” Hawkeye says, making a joke out of it, like he always does. “One night of fun, and then you’re out the door.”_ _

__B.J. makes a face at him. “Actually, I was going to go make us breakfast,” he says._ _

__“Ah, well, in that case, don’t let me stop you,” Hawkeye says. B.J. gets up and throws on his robe over his t shirt and boxers. As he’s about to leave the room, though, he gets a slightly panicked look on his face and grabs some jacket off the back of a chair, moving to go throw it in his closet. Hawk, though he hadn’t noticed the jacket before now, immediately wants to know what it is. “Keeping secrets?” he says._ _

__“It’s just an embroidery project,” B.J. says. “It’s not done yet.”_ _

__“Well, can’t I see it?” Hawk says._ _

__“Not till it’s done,” B.J. says. At this point, B.J. is fully _blushing_ , and Hawkeye’s fully confused as to how some arts and crafts could make B.J. so embarrassed._ _

__“Hey, I used to knit all the time, back in Korea, and most of those projects didn’t turn out too good. I’m sure this one is better than a lot of those, at least.”_ _

__“Really, it’s nothing,” B.J. says. “Would you please let me go make breakfast?”_ _

__Hawk wants to needle B.J. about it some more, but B.J. looks truly pained at this point. Normally, he’d push more, but he doesn’t want to spoil the day, so he lets B.J. finish sticking it in the closet without another word. As B.J. makes his way out of the bedroom, Hawkeye gets up too, donning his own robe and following B.J. out into the kitchen. B.J.’s already putting on water to boil for coffee._ _

__“Look, I know you said yesterday that you didn’t want me helping,” Hawkeye says, “but I’m really going to start to feel guilty if you don’t ever let me cook.”_ _

__B.J. rolls his eyes, going over to the fridge and getting out eggs and milk. “You and that great big martyr complex of yours,” he says. “Fine. Will you stick some bread in the toaster?” Hawk looks absolutely so pleased as he does this that B.J. regrets not having asked earlier._ _

__As they’re eating, B.J. says, very casually, trying to gauge what Hawk’s reaction will be, “So, my friends, Tommy and Lucy—the ones whose boat we borrowed yesterday—they asked us to come for dinner on Saturday night.”_ _

__“Oh?” Hawkeye says. “What did you say?”_ _

__“Well, I said yes. Figured we should go, seeing as we borrowed their boat and all. If that’s all right with you.”_ _

__B.J. is acting weird about this. Hawkeye can _tell_ there’s something that’s making B.J. feel weird about this. Does he not want Hawk to meet his friends? “Oh, well, as long as you don’t think I’ll embarrass you,” Hawkeye jokes._ _

__B.J. gives him an unreadable look, then. “I’m not worried about that,” he says. “So you want to go?”_ _

__“Sure,” Hawkeye says._ _

__“Well, good. Great. So. The only thing is, if we’re going to their house on Saturday, it means we won’t be able to go camping then, or anything. So I thought maybe we could go tomorrow, if you wanted to.” B.J. tries to suggest this just as casually as he brought up the dinner, but truth be told, he’s dying for Hawk to say yes. He can’t quite seem to shake that worry that he felt at Pier 23, the feeling of everyone’s eyes on them. He can’t quite seem to shake Hawkeye’s question last night, about if B.J. used to take Peggy there. He wants to be here in his city with Hawk, but he feels like he needs to get out of it first, find a little room to breath before figuring out how to make all these disparate pieces of his life fit together._ _

__“Camping sounds good,” Hawkeye says. “If we can get a spot on such short notice.”_ _

__B.J. waves his hand. “It’s not peak camping season, and I know places you don’t need reservations for. There’s one spot I had in mind, up in Tahoe National Forest. It’s about three hours east on 80, off Bowman Lake Road. It’s only about a mile hike in to the campground, but—as the name suggests—there’s a lake right there and great day hikes all around it.”_ _

__“A mile hike in sounds like absolutely long enough for me,” Hawkeye says. “I don’t want to have to carry a backpack any farther. Will my shoes be okay?”_ _

__“Those boots you brought with you? How old are they?”_ _

__“Old,” Hawkeye says._ _

__“How much arch support do they have?”_ _

__“They’re decent.”_ _

__“They’ll be fine,” B.J. says. “It’s not like we have to do fifteen-mile day hikes. I’d lend you some of my old hiking shoes, but I think they’d be too big for you.”_ _

__“Don’t remind me,” Hawkeye grumbles._ _

__“We’ll have to spend a little time today getting ready,” B.J. says. “I’ll have to pull my camping stuff out of the garage—I’ve got an old sleeping bag and pack I can use, and give you my new one—and we should stop by the grocery store, get some food. I’ve got some of that Wilson’s canned meat leftover from camping earlier this year, and some instant coffee, but we should pick up some jerky and nuts and other stuff at the store later today. I guess we can do that toward the end of the day today, after we’ve done something out in the city?”_ _

__Hawkeye’s so caught up in watching the gears turn in B.J.’s head, in B.J.’s excitement about the projects of grocery shopping and packing, that he almost forgets to reply. But then, with B.J. looking at him expectantly, Hawkeye says, “Yeah, that sounds great.”_ _

__“So, what did you want to do today?”_ _

__“Remind me what the options are?”_ _

__What follows is an extended back and forth over potential plans for the day as they finish up their breakfast and do the dishes, B.J. washing and Hawkeye drying. Eventually, they decide to go to Golden Gate and check out the park, the Academy of Sciences, and the De Young._ _

__They take B.J.’s bike over to the park and spend most of the morning in the Academy of Sciences. The aquarium there monopolizes most of their time; Hawkeye keeps pretending that he and B.J. are pet shopping. “That one,” Hawkeye says, grabbing at B.J.’s sleeve to get him to pay attention to him, pointing with his free hand at a large tuna swimming past the glass. “He looks grumpy, but I think it’s part of his charm.”_ _

__B.J. laughs as Hawkeye releases his sleeve. “Are you sure you don’t want something a little flashier?”_ _

__“Yes,” Hawkeye says. “He’s probably been here for years, overlooked by all the other aquarium enthusiasts… fish fans… what do you call them.”_ _

__“Well, if you have your heart set on him, that’s alright with me,” B.J. says._ _

__“Oh, good. Because I wasn’t going to take no for an answer.”_ _

__After an hour or two of this, Hawkeye and B.J. decide they’ve had enough science for one day. They wander out into the early afternoon, squinting a little at how bright it is when compared with the muted light of the aquarium. “Wow, the sun really came out,” B.J. says._ _

__In response, Hawk sings a little line of, “You Are My Sunshine,” practically leaping down the steps toward the park._ _

__B.J. hurries after him. “Hawk! Hawk!” he calls, laughing. “Wait up!”_ _

__Hawk comes to a cartoon-character-like screeching halt, turning around and waiting for B.J. to catch up to him. B.J. loves when Hawkeye gets like this, his enthusiasm visibly spilling out of his lanky frame. They make their way over to a nearby pond together, finding an unoccupied patch of grass under a tree. Hawkeye collapses onto the ground first, sprawling out as B.J. sits down next to him. Hawk’s got his eyes closed, and he looks like he almost might fall asleep. Given their late night last night, B.J. hopes that he does. Hawkeye needs all the rest he can get._ _

__B.J., on the other hand, is looking out at everyone else. Given the appearance of the sun, and the fact that it’s on the warmer side for September, the park is teeming with people. B.J. feels a little twinge, looking at them. There are some parents out with their kids, which makes B.J. miss Erin with ferocious intensity. He wishes she were here with him and Hawk, that they could walk her over to the playground together, that they could each grab one of her hands and swing her off the ground on their way there. B.J. can hear just the way she’d laugh about it._ _

__And there are young couples here, too, casually resting against one another, heads in laps or arms around shoulders. B.J. wants that casual touch; he wants to lie down with his head on Hawk’s stomach, to not have to be afraid of what Hawk or anyone else would think of that. But it’s a bittersweet kind of sadness that he feels; it’s almost enough for him to take in this intimacy from afar, as if he somehow shares in it merely by being proximate to it._ _

__Hawkeye remains unaware of the specificities of any of the relationships between the strangers in the park. With his eyes closed and his face warmed by the sun, he takes in the general chatter of so many other human beings around him; the noise and the assurance of knowing B.J.’s somewhere nearby allow him to start to drift off. He half falls asleep, still aware of small clumps of grass, knobby beneath his shoulder blades. The passing conversations of strangers merge with his dreams and spin out without really reaching an end. Each of these dreams is like a fraying thread on a carpet edge, half woven together with everything else, half a thing all its own._ _

__Hawkeye blinks himself back into awareness a half hour later and sees B.J. still sitting there, looking out over the park. Hawkeye doesn’t say anything for a minute, just watching the way B.J.’s taking in everything. He’s got on that peculiar expression of his, the one that would almost look calm to someone who didn’t know him better. But Hawkeye can tell there’s some sort of frustration or problem he’s trying to work out lurking below the surface._ _

__“Hey,” Hawkeye says, sitting up himself._ _

__B.J. turns to him. “Hey,” he says, his expression transforming instantly as he smiles an easy smile at Hawk._ _

__After eating the sandwiches they brought with them, they make their way to the De Young. At first, they try to keep pace with one another, but B.J. wants to look at each painting methodically, whereas Hawk seems to bounce from painting to painting with a logic that’s clear only to him. After a while of trying to fight their impulses, they give in to this more disjointed version of a museum trip, each of them moving at their own pace, but with Hawk periodically pulling B.J. away to come look at something that’s really caught his eye. He drags B.J. over to look at a Kandinsky, a Hilma af Klint, and a Gerhard Richter, among other things._ _

__Here at the museum, as with at the park, B.J. is more-than-aware of all the couples around them. He’s half looking at the art, half observing everyone around him. He used to come here with Peggy. Of course he did. But Peggy used to wait until there were specific exhibits she wanted to see and go straight to them, spend a concentrated hour or two with just that one; get in, get out. On the other hand, here Hawkeye is, trying to take in the whole museum at once. Every time Hawkeye comes over to drag B.J. to look at something new, B.J. acts annoyed, but really he could listen to Hawkeye talk about art all day long._ _

__Hawkeye, for his part, is caught up in the euphoria of being in a museum for the first time in years, although it’s accompanied by the odd anxiety that he always gets. As soon as a painting catches his eye, he’s already wondering if he’ll remember it a few years down the line. When he’d go to museums with his dad, he’d often take a notebook so he could write down all the artists and works that he liked best, although of course he doesn’t usually end up looking them up later, hunting down coffee table books or the like. Having B.J. here is like an odd assurance: _I’ll show you this painting that I like, and then we can remember it together. And even if I can’t recall it right a few years later, I know that we both saw it, and that the truth of it lies somewhere between us._ Because he’s letting himself daydream, just for today, that there will be years and years of him and B.J. together, in some way, in some form. _This way, when I go back to Maine, and I can call him up and say, Hey, remember when we first saw that Kandinsky? And he’ll tell it back to me, and it’ll be a reminder of that time we were right here in the same time and place._ _ _

__At one point, Hawkeye draws B.J. away to a portrait of Vsevolod Garshin by Ilya Repin. Looking out at B.J. from the painting is a very worn-down looking Russian man, seated at a desk piled with papers, an open book between his hands. Behind him is merely a pale blue wall. But despite how tired Vsevolod looks, how nearly-defeated he seems, he’s still got one eyebrow cocked and a charisma that bleeds off the page, seventy years after his death. With other paintings, Hawk often begins gesticulating wildly as he tries to convey to B.J. many thoughts he has about the color or composition. But with this one, after he drags B.J. over, he just stays silent. “Why this one?” B.J. says, after looking at it for a moment._ _

__“I don’t know,” Hawkeye says. “I just liked it.”_ _

__The museum is just about ready to close up when it’s _B.J._ that shows _Hawkeye_ a piece. B.J. goes over to where Hawk’s standing, considering an Ernst, and tugs at his sleeve, saying, “Hawk. Hey, Hawk.”_ _

__Hawkeye tears his gaze away from the Ernst and turns to look at B.J. instead. B.J. says, “I don’t know if you saw this piece in the other room—I think you might’ve skipped over it—but I think you should come see it.”_ _

__Hawkeye lets B.J. half-drag him over to where there are a few Anni Albers pieces hanging on the wall. They’re all woven tapestries of thick fibers, mostly muted green or brown in color. However, she’s woven them in such a way that distinctive parts of each tapestry seem incongruent with themselves: one tapestry seems to be made up of distinct patches of fiber, looking almost like an aerial view of rural landscape, while another is mostly homogenized except for one distinctive thread of black that snakes its way throughout the piece._ _

__Hawkeye contemplates each piece for a few minutes, but all he says to B.J. as they make their way into the next room is, “Pretty nice.”_ _

__“Pretty nice? That’s it?”_ _

__“I don’t know. What did you want me to say?”_ _

__“I don’t know. I just thought, because you have your knitting and stuff—I don’t know. I thought you’d think it was interesting.”_ _

__“Five minutes to closing,” a museum guard warns them._ _

__“My knitting? I gave that up after the war,” Hawkeye says._ _

__“What? Really?” B.J. says._ _

__“Yes, really,” Hawkeye says. They’re back in front of the Ernst, but neither of them are really looking at the painting, just at each other. “I can buy clothes here. I don’t have endless hours I need to kill waiting for wounded to come in.”_ _

__“Yes, but… I mean, you were so good at it.”_ _

__Hawkeye laughs. “It was just something I was doing to pass the time.”_ _

__“Well, that’s too bad,” B.J. says. “I would’ve liked if you’d have knit me at least one sweater before you gave it up.”_ _

__“You’d have to marry me first,” Hawkeye says very casually, face turned back toward the Ernst._ _

__“What?” B.J. says, trying not to let the shock permeating his whole being come through too clearly in his voice._ _

__“Well, you must know about the sweater curse. Start knitting a sweater for someone, and they’ll leave you before the sweater’s done. Unless you’re married.”_ _

__“Wouldn’t that only apply to couples, though?” B.J. says._ _

__“Yes, well, what can I say. I’m superstitious beyond reason.”_ _

__At this point, by some unspoken mutual agreement, they begin to make their way out of the museum. As they pass through the lobby and start down the steps, B.J. says, “Well, that’s too bad. I really thought you were good at it. At knitting.” When Hawkeye merely shrugs in reply, B.J. says, “I mean. I always liked holding your yarn for you.”_ _

__“Well, maybe I’ll take it up again in my old age. Stick around, and you can hold my yarn for me then, too.”_ _

__“Sounds like a deal,” B.J. laughs. When they make their way onto his bike, he’s glad for the fact that Hawk can’t see his face. He doesn’t want to admit how much Hawk’s comment about marriage rattled him, as well as all the talk about if he’ll hang around. _Of course I’ll hang around. I’m here to stay. From the moment I met you._ But this visit… it’s just for the week or so. Maybe longer. Hawk hasn’t talked about getting a ticket back yet, which allows B.J. to hope that maybe he’ll have him for a few weeks, maybe even a whole month. But still. There’s an expiration date on this, somewhere in the near future. And what happens when Hawk returns to his other coast? Will he start returning B.J.’s calls, or will this week feel, in hindsight, like a mirage?_ _

__By the time they arrive at the grocery store, B.J.’s managed to push these questions, for the most part, to the back of his mind, so that they can focus on getting ready for the camping trip tomorrow. The shopping trip takes much longer than it maybe should have because they don’t have a list. They keep walking down each aisle without real purpose, realizing they forgot something essential a few aisles ago, and walking halfway back across the store. They also get into more petty disagreements over what to bring than B.J. would have previously thought possible. They fight over what brand of jerky to buy, about what type of nuts are best for camping, about if they should make room in their packs for s’mores._ _

__“We’re not even supposed to light a campfire,” B.J. says. “So I don’t really see the point.”_ _

__“Then we’ll hold them over the little cook stove!” Hawkeye says. “I’m not going on this camping trip if it doesn’t have s’mores.”_ _

__“Fine,” B.J. says. “We will put all the graham crackers and chocolate and marshmallows in your pack.”_ _

__“Good,” Hawkeye says. “That way I can keep them all to myself.”_ _

__They both hold fast to their convictions in each argument, but there’s an undercurrent of love beneath it all. The satisfaction of filling up a shopping cart with Hawkeye for the first time in his life pleases B.J. more than he’d like to admit. Hawkeye keeps leaning on the cart and putting one foot up on the bottom of it so he can sail briefly around on it like a teenager. In the end, they’ve made their compromises (or, in many cases, their double purchases, one kind of food to go in B.J.’s pack, and one to go in Hawkeye’s), and they check out. B.J.’s brought one of the backpacks with him, and because they don’t have anything like the stove in it yet, they’re able to fit all the groceries into it easily._ _

__B.J. drives them home on the bike, and they spend a quiet evening just clowning around. Somehow, their gambling in Korea comes up. “You know,” B.J. says, “I think you still owe me money.”_ _

__“You’re kidding,” Hawkeye says._ _

__“No, I’m pretty sure you owe me.”_ _

__“How much?”_ _

__“Oh, nothing big. Maybe just a hundred.”_ _

__“Is that so?” Hawkeye says._ _

__“Yes,” B.J. says. “Yeah, I’m sure of it.”_ _

__“Well, good thing I’m here. Let’s settle this now. Let’s do a little bit _more_ gambling and give me a chance to win the money back.”_ _

__B.J. laughs. “I think I do have a few decks of cards somewhere around here,” he says. After he produces them from a closet, the night devolves into a game of Blackjack, and then Slapjack, and then Speed. With the card games, and the betting, and the general high energy, Hawkeye wants a drink, because Hawkeye always wants a drink. But he doesn’t want B.J. to _know_ that he wants a drink. And he doesn’t want to resort to hiding in the bathroom to take a swig of vodka. At least not this early in the visit. So he stays there, at the table, slapping B.J.’s hands away from the cards as B.J. says, “Hey! Hey! That’s cheating!”_ _

__Finally, it gets late enough into the night that B.J. says, “We should probably consider going to sleep, so that we can get up and go camping tomorrow.”_ _

__“True,” Hawkeye replies. There’s a beat of silence. Hawkeye wants nothing more than to sleep in B.J.’s bed again, to wake up with B.J.’s head on his chest, but he can’t say that he wants it. He suspects that last night was a one-time thing, an exception B.J. made because he had his nightmare. Grown men don’t usually just… share a bed. Hawkeye’s never _wanted_ to have another nightmare before._ _

__After a beat, B.J. says, “You know, you’re welcome to… I mean, seeing as we’re going to be sleeping on the ground for a few nights, you know… it only seems fair that we both spend one last night in a real bed.”_ _

__“I might have to take you up on that,” Hawkeye replies, trying to sound as casual as possible. “My back’s probably going to be in bad enough shape after camping as it is. Gotta take advantage while I can.”_ _

__The thing about tonight, though, is that they both have to go into the bedroom with the lights on, which seems almost too much for Hawkeye to manage. _What am I going to do, brush my teeth next to him in the sink and then follow him into the bedroom, strip down to my boxers in front of him, then climb into bed?_ Hawkeye thinks. Not that he hasn’t changed in front of B.J. countless times before. Not like they haven’t seen each other naked. But this feels different, somehow. This would be a chosen, not a necessary, intimacy. “I’ll come to bed in a minute,” Hawkeye says. “I just want to read for a little bit before I do.”_ _

__“That same book?” B.J. says. “About the war?”_ _

__“Yes,” Hawkeye says, looking defiantly at B.J., waiting to see if he’ll say anything more._ _

__But B.J. doesn’t, just raises his eyebrows and says, “Fine with me.”_ _

__Hawkeye picks up his book and doesn’t read a word of it. He sits at the kitchen table, heart pounding, wondering if B.J.’s in bed yet, if B.J.’s asleep. He wonders if he stays sitting here long enough, to the point where B.J. is clearly already lost in some dream, if he’d be brave enough to climb into bed and go to sleep with his head on B.J.’s shoulder or his hand brushing against B.J.’s. He knows he won’t. Wanting to run as fast and as far away as he can, and wanting to stay more than anything else in the world, are twin desires for Hawk. He wants to run, but he doesn’t. He always stays long enough to watch them leave. So he waits until he thinks B.J. must be asleep, then follows after him._ _

__***_ _

__B.J. wakes up early the next morning, before Hawkeye is up. The first thing he feels is a rush of gratitude that Hawk was able to sleep through the night, and another one that he wasn’t sprawled all over Hawk’s chest like yesterday. Hawkeye had woken up so soon after he’d pulled away. Every time B.J. remembers it (which he does often) he feels an almost overwhelming anxiety and shame consume him as he wonders if Hawk knows. But Hawkeye came to bed again last night. So he must not have woken up until after B.J. was safely back on his own side of the bed. And Hawkeye is definitely asleep now. He’s got his mouth open and is drooling on the pillow a little bit, but B.J. _still_ finds him adorable. He lets himself look for only a few seconds before pulling his eyes away and getting out of bed._ _

__He wants to let Hawk sleep as long as possible, but he also wants to get an early start today, so he kills a bit of time by double-checking that their packs are ready. He realizes that he still needs to grab his flannel, and, when he goes to do so, he sees the jean jacket lying where he threw it yesterday morning._ _

__B.J. considers the jacket, and the previous three days. Hawkeye making the joke about marriage. Hawkeye in his arms at the pier. Hawkeye sleeping in his bed. He has to admit that there’s been an unprecedented level of intimacy between them, even given in what close quarters they lived during the war. B.J. thinks about the coming days, getting out of the city, away from where there’s anyone but the two of them. Maybe being alone with Hawkeye will give him the courage he needs to say something. Maybe. Even though he knows the jacket is absolutely too bulky to justify taking, he grabs it and manages to stuff it into the very top of his pack. After that, he goes into the kitchen and starts cooking breakfast. When the eggs are done, Hawkeye still isn’t up. B.J. has the fleeting thought of bringing Hawkeye breakfast in bed, but just imagining it is enough to make him blush a deep red, so he nixes the idea. Instead, he goes back into the bedroom and puts a hand on Hawkeye’s shoulder, gently shaking him awake._ _

__Hawkeye sits up, looking a bit disoriented. He sort of tumbles out of bed and into his robe, following B.J. into the kitchen. Over breakfast, they chatter about plans for the next few days—predicted weather conditions, hikes they could take, and so forth—before heading downstairs and climbing into B.J.’s little bug. As they’re pulling out onto the street, B.J. turns on the radio, and the sounds of “Ain’t That A Shame” fill the car. B.J. laughs a little to himself. “What?” Hawkeye says._ _

__“Oh, it’s nothing,” B.J. tells him. “This song’s just overplayed, is all.”_ _

__“It is,” Hawkeye agrees. He tries not to put his feet up on the dashboard of B.J.’s car, but B.J. doesn’t seem to mind when Hawk gives in to the temptation after just a few seconds. “Do you mind if I change the station?” Hawkeye asks._ _

__B.J. shrugs. “Go ahead.” Hawkeye fiddles around until he finds a station that’s got Ella Fitzgerald singing, “Something’s Gotta Give.” At this, B.J. laughs again._ _

__“What?” Hawkeye says. “You can’t just keep laughing at every song that comes on the radio and not tell me why. I like to be in on jokes.”_ _

__“I know,” B.J. says. He pauses. “It’s just that… when you weren’t writing me back… Sometimes, I used to imagine that you’d call, and you’d come out to California, and we’d just take a trip up the coast. A little road trip, us staying in the cheapest motels we could find, little towns in the middle of nowhere, where the railroad used to stop, where the highway used to run but doesn’t anymore. Just dust and summer heat in a car with broken air conditioning, swimming in a different motel pool every night. And in my mind, Ella was always playing on the radio our whole way up the coast.”_ _

__B.J. keeps his eyes on the road as he says this, grateful for the excuse of driving to keep him from having to look at Hawk. He knows they used to do this all the time, to deal in fantasies, tell each other stories about being some place better than they were. But the thing about this fantasy is, it’s not some Lana –Turner-levels of deniable. What it’s rooted in, more than the safe inaccessibility of movie star glamor, is their past and their future. _This is what I thought about when you didn’t call, and, This is what I hope for in a future that could really happen. That could be ours._ B.J. isn’t sure if they’re allowed to talk about either of those things – the past or the future. They talk about the war, sure. But they haven’t really discussed the uncomfortable time between it and their reunion. And as far as the future goes – well, this whole visit still feels like a spell that could break at any moment._ _

__To his relief, all Hawkeye says is, “ _Up_ the coast? Not down, where the ocean is warm?”_ _

__“Yeah,” B.J. says, smiling, relaxing a bit. “I wanted to take you to see the redwoods. I wanted to be in one of those beach towns where there’s no other tourists and barely a post office. More driftwood than buildings. I thought we could stop at old graveyards up the way, look at all the headstones of people who died before we were ever born.”_ _

__At this, Hawkeye’s smile drops. “No graveyards,” he says._ _

__“No graveyards,” B.J. agrees._ _

__To B.J.’s relief, Hawkeye’s smile returns easily. “That’d be nice,” he says. “Wait, remind me why we’re going to go sleep in the woods instead of going with that other plan of yours?”_ _

__B.J. laughs. “I don’t think it’s really motel pool season.”_ _

__“Ah, well. Maybe when next summer rolls around.” Hawkeye’s heart is in his throat as he says this. He can barely get it out, but he feels he needs to, somehow. B.J. talking about those two lost years for the first time, telling Hawk he’d been thinking about him. Hawkeye wonders if it was before or after the divorce with Peggy went through that he’d come up with this road trip fantasy of his._ _

__“Yeah,” B.J. says. “Next summer.” And he sounds so certain that Hawk can almost believe he really means it._ _

___What exactly are we doing?_ Hawkeye wonders. _I flew across the country, and I haven’t bought my return ticket yet, and B.J. hasn’t asked me about it. He’s taking me to dinner to meet his friends. Taking me out to the woods to go camping._ He feels something in himself getting closer and closer to the breaking point. As much as it hurt to be away from B.J., there’s a different kind of pain in being this close. Every time they do something like go to dinner on the pier, or go grocery shopping together, or get in the car to take this trip, there’s an initial rush of pleasure as it makes it easier for Hawk to pretend, for a moment, that it’s everything he really wants. He can trick himself into living in a world somewhere inside of what’s real, one where B.J.’s his husband, where they never left each other’s sides after Korea. But the closer he comes to having what he wants, it only makes sharper the knife of whatever inevitable reminder crops up that this _isn’t_ what he’s tricking himself into thinking it is._ _

__Hawkeye almost wants to throw himself out of the car, right then and there, just take the asphalt burns and broken limbs in exchange for being free from this almost-fantasy. But he doesn’t, of course. He stays._ _

__The farther they go on 80, the smaller and farther between the towns become, until the oak trees and brown grass on the low hills give way to woods. Now all Hawk can see out the window are dense pine trees. “How often do you come up here?” Hawk asks B.J._ _

__“All the time,” B.J. says. “When I first got back, not as much, because it’s hard to find time, much less energy, to get out of the city when you’ve got a young kid. But after the divorce went through, and Peggy had Erin every other week… I was out camping or hiking almost every weekend. And I grew up skiing. My folks lived in Truckee, you know, until I was six years old. It’s just a little farther on 80 than where we’re headed today.”_ _

__“You never told me that,” Hawkeye says. “About being born in Truckee.”_ _

__B.J. shrugs. “I don’t remember it that well, except for the woods behind my friend’s Ethan’s house. But I do think being born up here did something to me… I think I’ve still got such a strong love of this forest because of those six years.”_ _

__“Does Ethan still live around here?”_ _

__“I have no idea,” B.J. says. “We fell out of contact a long time ago.”_ _

__They finally reach the parking lot, taking their packs out of the car and heading off toward the campsite. It’s an incredibly easy walk, but Hawkeye still manages to complain most of the way. B.J. ignores him. The scent of the pine trees, the little clouds of dirt that cling to his socks as they’re dislodged by his footsteps, the birdsongs: B.J. can feel himself breathing easier already. Soon enough, they’ve reached the site, a flat area near the lake, populated with small bushes and surrounded by more pine trees. It’s early afternoon at this point. Hawkeye drops his pack down and immediately flops onto the dirt. B.J. nudges him with his foot. “Come on, we have to set up camp,” he says. “Plus, I don’t want you getting your clothes covered in dirt and then bringing it into the tent later.”_ _

__“Isn’t the point of camping to get a little dirty?” Hawkeye says._ _

__B.J. decides to ignore the hint of innuendo he thinks he might hear in Hawkeye’s voice. “Just because there are no showers out here doesn’t mean you have to actually _lie directly in the dirt._ ”_ _

__“Fine,” Hawkeye says, standing up._ _

__B.J. realizes that to pull anything else out of his bag, he’s going to have to pull the jacket out first, and it’s not like there’s really anywhere around that he can hide it from Hawkeye. So he kind of turns his back as he opens his bag, pulling out the jacket and turning it inside out, so it’s not the embroidery, but just the messy stitching underneath, that shows through. Then he balls it up and sort of holds it awkwardly under one arm as he rifles through his bag for the tent. Once it’s out, he stuffs the jacket back into his pack as quickly as possible._ _

__When he turns around, Hawkeye seems to have not been paying attention at all, just sort of scuffling around some rocks with his boot. When he sees that B.J.’s got the tent, though, he comes over and helps him set up. It’s not hard to do; the tent is a tiny two-person one, as lightweight as possible. B.J. used to use it on trips with Peggy. He tries not to think about it. He hopes Hawkeye won’t ask. He also tries not to think about just how close they’ll be sleeping for the next few days._ _

__After they’ve got the tent set up, and they’ve eaten a quick lunch, Hawkeye looks around. “Well,” he says. “What are we going to do now?”_ _

__“Well, we definitely have time for a hike, if you want to do that,” B.J. says. “I know one that’s close to here—just a few miles up the mountain—and it has a great view, once we reach the top.”_ _

__“Sure,” Hawkeye says. “Lead the way.”_ _

__Once they’re on the trail, though, it’s Hawkeye who pulls ahead, bounding down the path and singing little snatches of different songs to himself as he goes. “ _When an irresistible force such a you / meets an old immovable object like me / You can bet, as sure as you live / Something’s gotta give, something’s gotta give, something’s gotta give._ ” B.J. follows more slowly behind, wanting to pace himself and leave himself time to take in the view. Hawkeye keeps realizing he’s getting too far ahead of B.J. and then turning around, waiting impatiently for him to catch up, only to quickly outpace him once they both start walking again._ _

__About halfway up the mountain, Hawkeye’s energy begins to wear thin. B.J. laughs as he finds Hawk sitting on a rock just off the path, refusing to get up even when B.J. catches up to him. “You really are becoming an immovable object,” he says._ _

__“What can I say? Now that my days of college football are behind me, I’m not as in shape as I once was.”_ _

__“What ‘college football days’?” B.J. says._ _

__“Didn’t you know? I played for Huxley College. I was the one driving the horse and chariot,” Hawkeye says.* B.J. gives his shoulder a little shove._ _

__“Come on,” he says. “Let’s keep moving. I’d love to reach the view while there’s still light to see by.”_ _

__“Oh, give me a break,” Hawkeye says. “We’ve got plenty of daylight left. If you don’t want to have to carry me down the mountain later, you’ll let me rest now.”_ _

__After that, the two of them are able to keep a more equitable pace up the mountain. “Come on!” Hawkeye says, “Everybody now!” He’s still singing, louder than before. He’s stuck on, “Something’s Gotta Give,” not singing it in full but throwing around lines that seem to be stuck in his head. “ _Don't say no because I insist / Somewhere, somehow / Someone's gonna be kissed,” he sings, before launching into the titular, “Something’s gotta give, something’s gotta give, something’s gotta give._ ” He keeps throwing his hands wide and going full performance mode; obviously he’s relishing being alone as much as B.J. is. B.J. can’t quite make himself join in with as much muster as Hawkeye is giving it, though; Hawkeye’s song choice hits too close to home. So he sort of sings half-heartedly, pausing to laugh, and Hawkeye keeps elbowing him in the ribs, saying things like, “Speak up, man! The birds can’t hear you!”_ _

__Eventually, they reach the crest of the mountain. Since they’re in the Sierras, of course there are many even-taller peaks all around them. Still, they’ve hiked far enough that they’re up above the tree-line. There’s just short shrubs popping out among the orange dirt. They can see the lake down below them. The wind picks up, and Hawkeye sort of leans into B.J. a little, probably not even aware that he’s doing it. B.J. wants to reach out and fully shelter him from the elements. No other time and place has ever felt like the more perfect opportunity to take Hawkeye into his arms. But maybe because of that—maybe because this moment is so close to perfect that he doesn’t want to ruin it—he doesn’t._ _

__Hawkeye leans into B.J. a little, aware that he’s doing it, wondering just how much he can get away with, how far he can lean before he topples right on over. He wants B.J. to lean over and kiss him. He wants to reach over and take B.J.’s hand. He wants a drink. Here, up on the mountain top, he takes in a landscape he’s never seen before, a part of California that he hadn’t imagined, even in his fantasies. All the while, he’s aware of the places the wind cuts between the small distance between his skins and B.J.’s._ _

__After a long while of this, each of them standing there lost in thoughts unknown to the other, B.J. says, “Are you ready to head back?”_ _

__“Is it just back the same way we came?” Hawkeye asks. B.J. nods. Hawkeye goes over to the edge of the flat part of the peak and looks down. The path they followed up the mountain led them a somewhat circuitous way to the top, but looking down this side, he can see straight down to their camp. It’s somewhat steeper than the path, but not too bad._ _

__B.J. can see what Hawkeye’s thinking, even before he says anything. “No—“ B.J. says, trying to cut off the idea before it can go too far. But Hawkeye will not be deterred._ _

__“Yes,” he says, giving B.J. a wheedling looking. “Look, it’s so much shorter down that way. I bet we could do it with no real problem.”_ _

__“You think that now,” B.J. says, “but then you’d get halfway down and hit some really steep part and just tumble down the rest of the mountain.”_ _

__“Come on. Where’s your sense of adventure?”_ _

__B.J. crosses his arm. “I have a perfectly fine sense of adventure. What I _also_ have, and which you apparently do not, is a sense of self-preservation.”_ _

__“I lost my sense of self-preservation in the war,” Hawkeye jokes, and then, before B.J. can stop him, he begins making his way down the side of the mountain.**_ _

__B.J. remains standing on top of the mountain for a moment, fed up with Hawkeye’s obstinacy. He wants to go back down the trail, so that Hawkeye won’t think that he’s won this argument. But he’s also worried Hawkeye’s going to fall and hurt himself. Realistically, he knows that the logical thing to do is to take the trail down so he doesn’t also potentially hurt himself, but he doesn’t want to keep Hawkeye out of sight for that long, knowing he’ll just worry the whole time. So before he has time to talk himself out of it, he follows Hawkeye down._ _

__B.J.’s right; it’s easy going at first, but then the mountain gets steeper. As they’re losing elevation, there’s more plants, too, and B.J. can feel sharp needles of shrubs snagging on his pants and shirt. “Hawk!” he calls. “What did I tell you!”_ _

__Hawkeye, who is still a bit in front of B.J., doesn’t stop, but he glances back over his shoulder briefly. “We have to speed up!” he says._ _

__“What?”_ _

__“Let our inertia carry us down the hill!” As he says this, he does just that, nearly breaking out into a full-blown run. The mountain’s so steep now that Hawkeye’s practically parallel to it, but somehow, he’s keeping himself upright, refusing to let gravity take him down. B.J. lets out a laugh of disbelief and, seeing no other option, follows Hawkeye’s lead._ _

__Hawkeye makes it to the campsite without incident; B.J. almost does, but as he’s stumbling down onto flat ground, he can’t quite stop himself, and he goes reeling into a nearby tree. One of its branches slices his face, but luckily, it misses his eye. Still, B.J. can feel blood welling up out of the cut._ _

__“Argh!” B.J. says. He’s got his back turned to Hawk as he pulls away from the tree, crouched over a bit, his hands holding his face. Hawkeye feels a spike of dread, and the smile he’s got on his face immediately vanishes. Going over to B.J. he says, “What happened? Are you alright? Let me see.”_ _

__B.J. swats Hawkeye away as Hawkeye hovers anxiously next to him. Taking his own hands away from his face, B.J. reveals his cheek, dripping blood. “It’s fine,” he says. “I don’t think it’s deep.”_ _

__Hawkeye grimaces. “We still need to get it cleaned up.”_ _

__“Well, luckily, I brought a first aid kit with me, because I know how to act in the woods, unlike _some people._ It’s in my bag,” B.J. waves towards where his pack his, sitting down on a nearby boulder. Hawkeye goes over to the bag. Just as he’s opening it up, B.J. says, “Wait!” Hawkeye pauses, his hands already on a jacket at the top of the bag, and looks at B.J. questioningly. When B.J. sees that he’s already got the bag open, though, he just sighs and says, “It’s fine.”_ _

__Hawkeye pulls out the jacket. It’s a jean jacket, covered in red and pink flowers. Hawkeye’s confused; it’s not very practical for camping. Did B.J. bring an embroidery project with him, for some reason? He doesn’t dwell on that line of thought, though, anxious as he is to find the first aid kit. He pulls it, and some toilet paper, out of the pack. Going over to B.J., he hands him the toilet paper, so he can wipe the blood away from his face. The cut has already started bleeding less. Hawkeye stands over him, watching. As soon as B.J.’s wiped away the blood, Hawkeye takes a disinfectant wipe out of the kit and says, “Here, let me.”_ _

__B.J. doesn’t reply, merely turning his face up toward Hawkeye so he can see the wound better. Hawkeye starts dabbing the wipe delicately on B.J.’s cheek. B.J. grimaces just slightly, and Hawkeye pulls his hand back immediately. “No, it’s fine,” B.J. says, and Hawkeye finishes cleaning the cut. Then Hawkeye takes a moment to look at it carefully, pressing a thumb to B.J.’s cheek just below the injury._ _

__“You’re right,” he tells B.J. “It’s shallow. You’ll be fine.”_ _

__B.J. watches as Hawkeye searches through the kit briefly for a band aid, watches his face as he presses the band aid onto B.J.’s cheek, feels as Hawkeye’s fingers linger on his cheek for just a second longer than necessary. When he’s done, Hawkeye collapses onto another boulder next to B.J. “I’m sorry,” he says._ _

__“It’s fine, Hawk,” B.J. says. “I’m fine.” He almost lets it drop, but he can’t help adding, “But I did tell you, didn’t I?”_ _

__“You did,” Hawkeye says. B.J.’s shocked that he’s not arguing the point. He can still feel a sting on his cheek, not from the cut itself, but from where Hawkeye’s hand lingered._ _

__“Look, let’s make dinner before it gets dark, shall we?” B.J. says. The sun has already set, but a bit of light lingers in the sky. It doesn’t take that long to rummage through their bags for dried fruit, jerky, and trail mix, but even in the short time that it takes them to boil water with which to heat up their less-than-delicious canned meat, stars are starting to come out. They sit down next to each other on a nearby log, placing a lantern at their feet so they can at least somewhat see what they’re eating. As they finish up and set their plates aside, Hawkeye says, “Canned meat. What a delicacy. Just like in the army.”_ _

__B.J. laughs. “I wanted to remind you of just what it was you were missing.”_ _

__Hawkeye glances over at B.J. He still feels guilty about the cut on B.J.’s face. He can’t see it in the dark, but he knows it’s there. _I want to take care of you,_ he thinks. _I don’t want to hurt you. Not like I did today. Not like I did by not calling these past two years._ He remembers B.J. offering up that fantasy of his, back in the car earlier today. _I used to imagine you’d call._ So it’s maybe in recompense for that that Hawkeye replies, “It’s still only ever been you that I missed.”_ _

__B.J. can feel his heart fluttering in his chest. The lantern’s light is dim, making it hard to read Hawkeye’s face in the dark. But the way he says it, it doesn’t sound like any kind of joke. As B.J.’s searching for what to say, Hawkeye does what he does best; he fills up the silence. Looking up at the sky, he says, “How many constellations do you know?”_ _

__B.J. looks up too. “I know a decent amount. Now’s not the best time to see them, though. And it’s a little too early in the evening, I think.” Still, he scoots over so that he’s sitting right next to Hawkeye, trying to give them the same vantage point before he points up at the sky. “I mean, there’s an easy one. The big dipper.”_ _

__Hawkeye swats his hand down. “Oh, I know _that_ one.”_ _

__“Well, fine,” B.J. says. “I don’t _have_ to share my knowledge of constellations with you if you don’t want me to.”_ _

__“No, no,” Hawkeye says. “Keep going.”_ _

__“Okay, well. Let’s see. There’s Pegasus.” He points again._ _

__“Where?” Hawkeye says. “I don’t see it.”_ _

__“Well if you’d just _look_ for longer than two seconds,” B.J. says. He gestures, trying to outline where Pegasus is. “See? Those four stars make a box. That’s his body. And you can see his legs that way.” Hawkeye gets even closer to B.J., his whole side pressed against the other man’s, to try and see what he sees._ _

__“Oh, yes,” Hawkeye says finally. “Good old Pegasus.” Even after he’s seen it, though, he doesn’t pull away. “Well?” he asks. “What else have you got for me?”_ _

__“Well—“ B.J. says, trying to compose himself. _We’d never be doing something like this back in the city_ , B.J. says. But here, he doesn’t have to worry about what this looks like to anyone else. All that’s left is to worry about is what it means to Hawkeye. “Well, there’s Aquarius, right below Pegasus. See?” He points. “See, with the arm out to the side?”_ _

__Hawkeye looks. “I do see,” he says. “Doesn’t really look like much of anything to me, though. Aren’t there any pinup girls in the sky or anything?”_ _

__B.J. laughs. “Not that I know of. There’s a few lovers, though.”_ _

__“Oooh,” Hawkeye says. “Please give me all the most salacious details.”_ _

__“They’re not so much salacious stories as they are sad,” B.J. says. “I don’t think you tend to end up as a constellation unless things work out badly between you.”_ _

__“It’s a good thing we’re here on the ground, then,” Hawkeye says. Before B.J. has time to dwell on what he could possibly be insinuating, though, Hawkeye tugs at B.J.’s arm and says, “Oh, look. There’s one I know!”_ _

__B.J. looks toward where Hawkeye’s pointing but doesn’t see any constellation he recognizes. “Really?” he says._ _

__“Yeah,” Hawkeye says. “It’s a lesser known one. Harold the Deserter. Tried to run away from the army, fell down a hill, and died. They put him in the sky as a consolation prize. See, there? You can see his broken neck. It’s a particularly gruesome constellation, which is probably why it doesn’t get talked about much.”_ _

__B.J. laughs. “Oh, really?” he says. “You know, if things had gone worse for me up on that mountain today, I could’ve ended up there, too.”_ _

__“I wouldn’t let you,” Hawkeye says._ _

__“You wouldn’t let me?”_ _

__“I wouldn’t let you end up there. I’m keeping you right down here on earth with me, for the time being,” Hawkeye says. He says it so defiantly, so finally, like that’s the end of the argument. _I’m looking out for you.__ _

___But what about when you leave?_ B.J. thinks to himself._ _

__And maybe because it’s dark, and late; maybe because they are utterly alone, and because B.J. is driving himself crazy thinking about Hawkeye sleeping in his bed, about Hawkeye’s hand lingering on his cheek. For whatever reason, he hears himself saying, out loud, “And what about after?”_ _

__“What?”_ _

__“What happens when you leave? Go back to Maine?”_ _

__There’s a pause. He still can’t see Hawk’s face in the dark. “I don’t know, Beej,” Hawkeye says. “I haven’t wanted to think about that, yet.”_ _

__“About what?”_ _

__“About leaving.”_ _

__“So stay,” B.J. says. When Hawkeye laughs in response, he adds, “I’m serious. You could stay, if you wanted.” Hawkeye’s still so close to him that B.J. can feel him shiver a little. It’s been getting colder as it’s been getting later. “Are you cold?” he asks Hawkeye._ _

__“No,” Hawkeye says. “I’m fine.”_ _

__“No, really. Are you cold? I have—I have an extra jacket with me.” Before Hawkeye can reply, B.J. gets up, going over to his pack to grab the jacket. He’d cut Hawkeye off before he could reply, too scared of what his answer would be. Too scared that what he was saying would be misconstrued. But he knows that now that he’s half-asked the question, here alone at what feels like the top of the world and the very center of the earth all at once – he knows that if he isn’t brave enough to ask the question now, and to make his meaning plain, that he won’t ask again. And he has to. He has to ask. He can’t stand the thought of—of Hawkeye leaving, again. Of not hearing Hawkeye’s voice, or seeing his face, for months—years—at a time. If Hawkeye leaves, this time it’s got to be final. B.J.’s got to move on. But if he wants to stay—_ _

__Because maybe he wants to stay. Maybe this isn’t all some story B.J.’s been telling himself. Maybe it’s real. And the only way to know is to ask, is to lay bare his part of it. So he goes over to Hawk, draping the jacket on his shoulders. Hawkeye reaches up and pulls it on over his flannel, saying, “This fits me perfectly.”_ _

__“I’d hope so,” B.J. tells him. “I made it for you.”_ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * This is a Marx Brothers joke that I put in here for, like, myself and two other people. In _Horsefeathers_ , the Marx brothers play football for the fictional Huxley College, and do a spectacularly bad job of it. It’s always good to put a joke in your story that you have to put a footnote about to explain to most of your readers <3 But since they reference the Marx Brothers so much in the show itself, I put this in as a little treat 2 me.  
> ** Please don’t try this at home. Stay on trails! They are there for your safety and to protect the natural surroundings! That being said, Hawkeye is doing this.
> 
> Thank you for reading! Kudos & especially everyone who has been leaving comments are so appreciated 😭


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, thank you as always to [horaetio](https://archiveofourown.org/users/horaetio/pseuds/horaetio) for beta reading for me!!!!!
> 
> Second, the original idea for this fic came from the Sufjan Stevens song "Futile Devices," although it has obviously grown a lot from there. So, since Sufjan graced us mere hours ago with an incredible new album, may I recommend for your listening pleasure while reading this chapter [that album](https://open.spotify.com/album/1tYHjJ50WowcNvDTLdf6Wo?si=fpDkKe8MT7W4xGHB1Ml05Q), and particularly for Beejhawk vibes [this song](https://open.spotify.com/track/0cnKdRQOKGwrtsnRepGvDv?si=AZkuog1gSUKhW5Dyu-Dxlw). In any case, enjoy the chapter!

_I made it for you._

In just the lantern light, it’s too dark for Hawkeye to really see the jacket, but he takes a hand and runs it over the stitching. He doesn’t know much about embroidery, but he knows enough to realize that this must have taken B.J. months to complete. All that time when Hawkeye didn’t write and didn’t call, B.J. had been making this for him.

“Hawk?” B.J. says, his voice cracking a little. Hawkeye realizes that it’s been a long minute since B.J. spoke, and that he still hasn’t offered any kind of reply.

“But you didn’t know I was coming back,” Hawkeye says.

“But you did come back,” B.J. says, sitting back down on the log near Hawkeye, careful to keep a few feet between them. Neither of them are looking at one another. They’re staring straight out into the darkness instead. “Did you… I mean, why’d you come back?”

Hawkeye gets up off the log, then. “I don’t deserve this,” he says, taking the jacket off and trying to hand it back to B.J.. B.J. won’t reach out and take it, though, so Hawk ends up just setting it in B.J.’s lap. Hawkeye starts to pace, even though it’s dark, even though he knows he could easily trip over something. He can’t help himself.

“You don’t want it?” B.J. says.

“No, I—of course I want it. I love it. I love the jacket.” _I want it. I want you. I love you._ “I love the jacket, but—“ _But you’ve got a fairly-recently-ex-wife, and I’ve got a drinking problem and a habit of not calling._ “But how can I accept it, after the way I’ve treated you? I show up here with no notice, and you’ve got a gift for me that’s been months in the making!”

“Years,” B.J. says.

“Years?”

“As soon as I got back from Korea.”

There’s a silence.

“See?” Hawk says. “This is what I mean. Years of me not calling—“

“I already forgave you, Hawk. It’s the new year, now. Can’t we just move past it?”

“Can you move past it?” Hawkeye says. “Can you forgive me? Just like that? And never wonder why I didn’t write, why I didn’t call?”

 _I can forgive you,_ B.J. thinks. _I don’t want to wonder. I don’t want to ask, not when you’re here with me now._ But he can tell this answer won’t be enough for Hawkeye, somehow. How is it that it’s _Hawkeye_ that it’s not enough for?

“Why—“ B.J. says, hesitating. “Why didn’t you call?”

Hawkeye sits back down, then, still careful to maintain some distance between himself and B.J. “I didn’t call because I wanted you to move on.”

B.J. laughs a little, then. So this is how it ends. Hawkeye wanted him to move on, and he couldn’t, so Hawk’s flown all the way across the country to let him down easy, to have one or two more weeks together for old times’ sake before he says goodbye forever. B.J. doesn’t even know what to say.

But then Hawkeye continues, “I wanted you to move on, because I couldn’t. I can’t. Remember what I said to you, those last few minutes in Korea? _‘I’ll never be able to shake you.’_ And it’s true. I haven’t been able to. You were coming home to a wife and a family, and I was going home to my other coast, and we were going—we were going to have dinner together once a year! And I couldn’t stand the idea of that, not after what—after what you’d meant to me. So I was just—I was trying to make it easier for both of us. No—no sense obligation for you, and for me, no—But you wouldn’t let it lie! And now here you are, with this jacket for me, and what have I done for you, I’ve given you nothing, I’ve—“ Hawkeye stops talking abruptly, seemingly unable to continue.

“I don’t have a family anymore, Hawk,” B.J. says. “I mean, I have Erin, but Peggy—the whole time, as soon as the war was over, Hawk, I tried to go back, I tried, but—but I couldn’t. I haven’t been able to shake you, either. And I don’t think I want to.”

B.J. waits, terrified in the dark, for Hawkeye’s answer. But Hawkeye gives him none. Instead, he gets up off the log again, picking up the lantern as he walks over toward the tent. “Where the hell are you going?” B.J. says.

“I need a drink.”

“Jesus Christ,” B.J. says. “You need a drink? Now?”

“Yes, now,” Hawkeye says, fumbling with his bag. His hands are shaking. “I’m an alcoholic, don’t you remember?”

“You know, I almost prefer when you were in denial about it,” B.J. says. 

Hawkeye laughs as he finds his bottle of vodka and unscrews the lid, taking a swig. “Of course you prefer me in denial.”

“That’s not what—“ B.J. says. He realizes that he’s frustrated with Hawk. Not just frustrated. Mad. Furious, even. Here he is, trying to forgive him, show him that he cares, and Hawkeye refuses to hear it. Well, damn it, he’s going to make him listen. B.J. stands up. “You know, it’s just that I don’t see why you have to drink right now, right when I’m trying to tell you I’m in love with you.”

Hawkeye pauses just as he’s about to take another swig of vodka. Puts the cap back on. Sets it down. Stands back up. “What?” he says, turning around. There’s a good fifty feet of distance between him and B.J., and it’s hard for either of them to really read each other’s expressions.

B.J. laughs. He can’t help it. He laughs, and he repeats, “I’m in love with you.”

“What? You can’t—I mean—“

Hawkeye isn’t running away. He’s not screaming his head off. He’s not calling B.J. disgusting. He sounds almost reverent in his disbelief. If B.J. didn’t know Hawk better, maybe he’d still be thinking this was the end of the line for them. But he’s imagined this so many times—telling Hawkeye he’s in love with him—and he’s imagined it going a lot worse than this. So he walks forward, toward Hawk and his lantern, closing the distance between them. “I’m in love with you,” he says, softly now, putting both hands on Hawkeye’s shoulders. Hawkeye doesn’t flinch, doesn’t move away.

“But I don’t—“ Hawkeye replies, just as softly. “I can’t—you’re in love with me?”

B.J. nods, even though he’s not sure if Hawkeye can see it in the dim lantern light. Either way, Hawkeye leans in, and before B.J. has time to take a breath, Hawkeye’s kissing him.

B.J. hesitates just a moment, all the neurons in his brain misfiring, before kissing Hawkeye back with the full force of five years of unrequited love. He’s got one hand in Hawkeye’s hair, one hand on Hawkeye’s flannel, pulling him closer, no distance between them now.

They pull away after a minute or two, both of them laughing in disbelief. “I don’t deserve you,” Hawkeye says.

“Shut up and kiss me again,” B.J. says, and Hawk does. After another long minute, they finally pull away again, but only by a few inches, hands still tangled in each other’s clothes. It’s as if they’re afraid of taking too much at once of everything they’ve ever wanted.

“So you—“ Hawkeye says. “So you’re a homosexual, then?” And he starts cracking up.

“Shut up,” B.J. says, releasing his hold on Hawkeye’s shirt to give his shoulder a light shove. Hawkeye immediately finds his way back to B.J.’s side, though, grabbing another fistful of his shirt and sheltering in his arms. B.J. holds him just like he’d imagined doing up on the mountain. “Don’t try to tell me you’re not, not after a kiss like that.”

“Oh, I’m about as fruity as they come,” Hawkeye says. “It’s just—well, it’s just—I’ve been dreaming about kissing you like that for years, you know.”

“No, I didn’t know!” B.J. says. “If I’d known, I would have kissed you sooner!”

“No, you wouldn’t have,” Hawkeye says. “There was the wife problem.”

“The wife problem,” B.J. says, burying his face in Hawk’s hair. “Don’t talk to me about the wife problem. That’s solved now, anyway. What with the divorce and all.”

“I just mean—it wasn’t all stupidity, you know, on my part. Assuming you were straight as an arrow. You _did_ have a w—“ But before Hawk can say the word “wife” one more time, B.J. puts his hand over Hawkeye’s mouth, laughing. Hawk, in response, licks it, like some kind of third-grade kid.

“Ew!” B.J. says, laughing even more as he takes his hand away to wipe it on his pant leg. “Get away from me!” he jokes.

“Okay,” Hawkeye says, and begins to pull away, but before he can even fully disentangle himself from B.J., B.J.’s already pulling him back.

“No, no, I was kidding! I was kidding. Stay.” He loves saying that. He loves asking that— _Stay_ —now that he knows that Hawkeye wants him.

“Okay,” Hawkeye says, and B.J. can hear the smile in his voice, even if he can’t see it. “Yeah, okay. I’ll stay.”

“Well, good,” B.J. says, and just wraps Hawkeye up in a hug.

The two of them just stand there, like that, for a long while. Eventually, though, Hawkeye says, “You know, I actually _am_ cold. I would like that jacket back, please.”

“It’s on the log,” B.J. says, picking up the lantern. As he moves to go get the jacket, Hawkeye keeps a hand clinging to B.J.’s shirt, following him. After Hawkeye puts the embroidered jacket back on, he nestles closer to B.J. “You know, we could—” B.J. pauses. “I mean. It’s getting late, and it’s late September, and sitting in the tent would really be. I mean, it’d be warmer than standing around out here all night.”

B.J. can feel his face growing warmer with every passing second. Matters aren’t helped when Hawkeye immediately asks, “Are you propositioning me?”

“Would you like to be propositioned?”

“What do you think?” Hawkeye asks.

Instead of leading him to the tent, though, B.J. gets more serious and says, “You know, I haven’t—I mean—Well, you’re the first man I’ve ever kissed.”

“Aw, Beej, come on. It’s not like I have a lot of experience with this stuff either. I mean, well—“ Hawkeye coughs. “I mean. I have some ideas. A lot of ideas. About what I’d like to do with you, you know. Eventually. But we don’t have to do anything all at once.”

B.J. can feel himself relax as Hawkeye says this. It’s not that he doesn’t want Hawkeye—Oh my _God_ , does he want Hawkeye—but knowing that they don’t have to, as Hawkeye said, _do anything all at once_ , is reassuring. “Oh, good,” B.J. says, then hurries to add, “I mean—I would also like. Um. Well. You know. There are— _things_ —I mean, you’re a very—“

Hawkeye laughs. “Don’t give yourself an aneurysm,” he says. “Come on, I’m cold.”

“Well, wait. I have to put our food up in a tree and wash the plates so that bears don’t bother us in the middle of the night,” B.J. says. “Go get in the tent. I’ll come in in just a minute.

“Come on, let me help you.”

“You really don’t have—“

“I know I don’t _have_ to,” Hawkeye says. “I _want_ to.”

“Well, okay,” B.J. says. “Why don’t you take the lantern and wash the plates. I’ll get our food up in a tree.” B.J. pulls a flashlight out of his nearby bag, then hands Hawk the lantern.

Though it doesn’t take long for either of them to finish up these simple tasks, both of them are acutely aware of the distance between them the whole time, keeping in the back of their minds an awareness of exactly where the other is in space. B.J. walks over to Hawkeye just as he’s finishing the dishes. Hawkeye reaches up, his hands still a little wet and soapy, and runs a hand through B.J.’s hair. “Miss me?” he jokes.

“I did,” B.J. replies, all seriousness. They make their way over to the tent, and Hawkeye goes in first, then B.J. trips over Hawk’s legs and practically falls on top of him. Hawkeye sets the lantern down, and it lights up the small space as B.J. struggles to right himself. They end up sitting facing one another, their legs tangled together. B.J. reaches up and zips the tent closed.

“Just how exactly was this supposed to work if we _hadn’t_ confessed our love for each other?” Hawkeye says, looking around at the tiny space.

“I had my worries,” B.J. says. Then he adds, “Hey, now that you bring it up, it’s actually just _me_ that confessed my love.”

“What are you talking about?” Hawkeye says. “Are you telling me I kissed you like that and you _still_ don’t think I’m in love with you?”

“Well, you never actually said it, is all.”

“Oh my god,” Hawkeye says. “You are impossible. I’m in love with you, okay? I’m in love with you.” Hawk starts out exasperated, but by the time he’s gotten to the end of his declaration, he’s all joy. B.J. smiles. “Oh, come here,” Hawkeye says. “I miss you.”

B.J. grins and leans over Hawk, kissing him again, this time long and slow. They lie there just making out like two teenagers for a long while. That’s really how it feels to B.J. Almost like he’s a teenager again. _So this is how it’s supposed to feel_ , he thinks. A discovery or a rediscovery or an inventing of some new kind of love. Just when he feels like he’s going to drive himself crazy if this doesn’t go any farther, he pulls away. He’s not quite ready for anything more, yet. Instead, he sets his head down on Hawkeye’s chest. _Just like yesterday morning_ , Hawkeye thinks. Only this time, he reaches a hand down and starts playing with B.J.’s hair.

After a minute, B.J.’s got a question that he can’t quite push to the back of his mind. “So when you said you didn’t have a _lot_ of experience—“ B.J. begins. “Does that mean that there _have_ been, um. Other guys?”

“A few,” Hawkeye says, still playing with B.J.’s hair.

“Trapper?”

Hawkeye laughs softly. “Trapper broke my heart, but no, we didn’t actually ever sleep together. He wasn’t—I mean, as far as I know, he’s not really so inclined.”

“But you were in love with him?”

Hawkeye sighs. “Are we doing this right now? You’re the one I’m in love with.”

“But you _were_ in love with him,” B.J. repeats. “Weren’t you?”

“I wouldn’t have been in love with him if I’d known you were somewhere out there, waiting to meet me,” Hawkeye says. B.J. knows it’s selfish to ask about it, here and now. But he can’t help it. He’s still scared, somehow, that Hawk’s going to change his mind, even as he’s lying here in his arms. But Hawk knows what to say, and his answer calms B.J.’s fears, at least for the moment.

Still, he’s less jealous and more just curious about the others. “So if it wasn’t Trapper—“ he says.

“Let’s see,” Hawkeye says. “My first kiss was Theo. Sixth grade. It never went farther than that, and we never talked about it, but he used to come over to my house all the time. But Theo moved away, to New York City, in seventh grade. I definitely moped around the house like it was a breakup I was going through. I wonder—sometimes I wonder if my dad knew. If he knows. He never said anything.” He pauses. “In high school, I did have a girlfriend for a while. Bethany. But I’ve always—even then, I think I knew it wasn’t something I could—I wasn’t doing it right. I wasn’t feeling—whatever it is you’re supposed to feel.”

“So then there was Laurie. A few months in high school. Hiding. Pretending not to know each other at school. Which, given the size of our school, was probably more conspicuous than not. His dad started coming down on him hard, about other things, and Laurie got scared about his dad finding out about us, so he ended things. I can’t blame him for it, but it broke my heart. And then there was Oliver, in college. But he met a girl and broke things off too.”

Hawk’s been getting quieter and quieter the longer he talks. “And then no one after that,” he finishes. “No one that matters.”

B.J. shifts a little, putting his arms around Hawk. Holding him. “I wouldn’t have left you,” he says. “If I’d had you. I won’t leave you.”

“You can’t promise that,” Hawkeye says.

B.J. sighs. “You know,” he says. “I didn’t realize about—about myself. That I’m—that I’m gay.” It’s the first time he’s ever said it out loud. “Not like you knew. I didn’t know until I met you. I’ve never—you’re the first person I’ve ever told. About myself.”

Hawkeye turns around and kisses B.J. then, just one soft kiss. Then he lays his head on his shoulder. “Thank you,” he says.

“For what?”

“For telling me.”

B.J. laughs. “It feels good. To tell someone. Especially given that that _someone_ ended up kissing me in response.”

Hawk holds up one of his arms, taking another look at the embroidery on the jacket. Now that they’re in the tent, the lantern casts enough light with which to get a good look at it. “It’s really beautiful,” he says. “I can’t believe you spent all this time making something this beautiful for me.”

“I wanted to,” B.J. says. “I was playing at being Penelope while you were at sea. Only instead of keeping other suitors away, I was just calling you back to me.” 

“Well, it worked. Eventually. It just took me longer than it should’ve to stop being an idiot.”

“I’m not sure you’ve _stopped being an idiot_ ,” B.J. says. “But I’m glad you finally came out to California to be an idiot in my general vicinity.”

Hawkeye wants to ask, _So what happens now?_ Because he flew out here to stay for a few weeks with only one suitcase. And B.J.’s got a life. He’s got a _daughter_. And Hawk’s got a problem when it comes to being around kids. But he’s afraid he won’t like the answer. He’s afraid there won’t _be_ an answer. So he stays quiet, for now.

“I didn’t mean it, you know,” B.J. says. “About you being an idiot.”

Hawkeye laughs. “No, you’re right about that. I am an idiot.”

“You’re my idiot,” B.J. says. _You’re my idiot. You’re my mess. You’re the love of my life._

Hawkeye shivers. B.J. adds, “I guess maybe we should actually get _into_ our sleeping bags and try, I don’t know. Sleeping.”

“I _guess_ ,” Hawkeye sighs. Reluctantly, they disentangle themselves. B.J. almost wants to try and fit into one sleeping bag like they’re little kids, but he knows they won’t be able to get any rest that way, and they’ve got a day of hiking ahead of them tomorrow. To be honest, he’s _still_ not sure he’ll get any sleep tonight. But he can at least try.

After they’ve each gotten into their separate sleeping bags, Hawkeye reaches out. B.J. takes his hand, and it’s a long time before either of them falls asleep, aware, as they both are, of that point of connection between them.

***

_Erin’s standing in the kitchen. B.J.’s kitchen, Hawkeye realizes. He looks around, but he doesn’t see B.J. anywhere. He is suddenly very, very sure that Erin is going to get hurt, even though there’s nothing obviously wrong. He looks around for signs of danger: knives left laying out on the counter, sharp edges she might run into. He doesn’t see anything. When he turns his gaze back to Erin, though, he sees that she’s bleeding, hard, from her stomach. Panicked, he looks around for his medical bag. He’s going to have to operate. He doesn’t know where he put it. He doesn’t know where B.J. is. He tries to call out, but he can’t speak. He tries to go toward her, to stop the bleeding, at least, but he can’t. Erin keeps bleeding._

Hawkeye wakes up mid-panic attack. It’s happened before, but it’s never pleasant. Something about it waking up in the _middle_ of one is even more disorienting than when he can feel them coming on. Rationally, he knows that’s what it is, just a panic attack. He knows that he’s not _actually_ going to run out of air. But it doesn’t help the feeling of not being able to breathe. He’s always able to be so logical about medical concerns except when it comes to himself. He doesn’t want to wake B.J. up, but something about being out in the woods makes him even more scared than usual that what he’s experiencing is an actual medical emergency. He knows, he _knows_ , that it’s not true. And yet. He and B.J. are already sleeping close, so he reaches out and grabs onto B.J.’s shirt, half-hoping it’ll wake him.

B.J. is disoriented for just a second upon waking before realizing that he’s in the woods, that it’s Hawkeye who’s grabbed ahold of him. Still half-asleep, he pulls Hawkeye into his arms, resting his chin on Hawkeye’s shoulder. “You’re fine,” he says. “I’m here. You’re okay.”

After a while, Hawkeye’s breathing becomes more regular. The first thing he says is, “I’m sorry.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry for.”

“I’m sorry,” Hawkeye repeats. “I’m sorry.”

***

When B.J. wakes up again, Hawkeye is still in his arms, but early morning light is now filtering in through the tent. B.J. almost moves away from Hawkeye before he realizes that he doesn’t have to. He can’t believe he gets to have this, now. To touch Hawkeye without worrying about when he has to pull back. Without worrying about what it means or how much Hawkeye wants it. He just lies there like that for a while, feeling Hawkeye breathe, grateful for this moment and scared of what comes next.

Hawkeye wakes up maybe half an hour later, almost flinching in B.J.’s arms before relaxing again. Realizing, as B.J. did, that he’s allowed to have this, now. Then he rolls over and smiles, almost with trepidation, at B.J. “Hi,” Hawkeye says.

“Morning,” B.J. says.

“Not rethinking last night, are you? No regrets starting to sink in about having kissed your alcoholic war buddy in the middle of the woods?”

“No,” B.J. says. “How about you?”

“No,” Hawkeye says. There’s a pause. “So what do we do now?”

“Well, we could just lie here all morning,” B.J. says.

“I like that idea.”

“Me too,” B.J. says, but something in him is anxious at the thought of doing just that. There’s been no guarantees yet of where this is going or how long it will last. He’s afraid of settling into it. “But it seems a shame to waste away a morning in the woods. We should make breakfast, so we can go hiking.” As B.J. tries to get up, though, Hawk reaches up and drags him back down.

“Nooo,” he says. “No. You are absolutely not getting up and making breakfast for us.”

“Hawk, we have to eat,” B.J. says.

“I know. But if you are so dead set on getting up right away—which you still haven’t really sold me on, by the way—then at least let _me_ make breakfast for _you_. I know I don’t have much to work with, out here in the woods, but still. You’ve done enough cooking for me in the past few days.

“Is my cooking really that bad?” B.J. asks.

“No,” Hawkeye says, instead of continuing the joke. “This is just something I want to do.”

B.J. rolls his eyes. “This is ridiculous.”

“Yes,” Hawkeye agrees. “It is.” He kisses B.J. “But will you humor me anyway?”

“Yes,” B.J. says. Of course he will. He always does. Hawkeye sits up and wriggles out of his sleeping bag, awkwardly putting on jeans over his long johns in the small space and grabbing the jacket that B.J. gave him last night. Then he unzips the tent, sticking his boots onto his feet before finally standing up. As he’s reaching down to zip the tent back up, though, B.J. says, “No, leave it open.”

Hawkeye shrugs and walks over to the tree, getting the food down, then starting up the water to boil so he can make the oatmeal and instant coffee. There’s not really much for him to do after that, except wait for the water to boil, so he sits down on a nearby boulder and does just that. He waits. He can feel the chill of the morning air through his long johns and jacket, but it’s invigorating. There are birds singing all around him, and the light has that particular quality you only seem to get on early mornings when you’re camping. Maybe it has something to do with the way it’s filtering in through the needles on the pine trees.

“I’m expecting fresh-squeezed orange juice!” B.J. calls from the tent.

“Stop heckling me!” Hawkeye calls back. “If you keep distracting me, I’ll mess up this instant oatmeal! It’s a very delicate cooking process! You can have orange juice when we get back to civilization!”

“This is very romantic,” B.J. says.

“Shut up,” Hawkeye says.

“Hawk, are you sure I can’t get up?” B.J. says. “Come on. You’re so far away.” He blushes as he says it, but his want to be near Hawkeye outweighs his embarrassment.

“Oh, fine,” Hawkeye says. “But don’t say I never tried to do anything nice for you.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” B.J. says, already climbing out of his sleeping bag and putting on his own jeans and boots.

He goes over to where Hawkeye’s sitting, and when he hesitates for a second, Hawkeye reaches up and pulls B.J. down next to him, practically into his lap. B.J. wraps his arms around Hawkeye and sits eyeing the water.

“They say a watched pot never boils,” Hawkeye says.

“I guess I’ll just have to look at you then,” B.J. says, in the same joking time he’s used so many times before, only this time he holds his gaze steady after he says it, not looking away.

Hawkeye practically goes cross-eyed, jokingly saying, “Don’t. I’m shy.”

“I can’t help it. You’re the best view around.” Hawkeye jokingly tries to move out of B.J.’s arms, but B.J. leans over and gives him a kiss, which ends up distracting both of them so much that they don’t notice the water is boiling until they hear the hiss of it boiling out of the pot. At that, Hawkeye leaps up, turning off the camp stove and readying everything, then bringing it over to B.J. with a dramatic flourish.

“Well, it’s better than the mess tent, anyway,” Hawkeye says, flopping down again next to B.J.

B.J. takes a bite. “This is delicious,” he says, and he means it. There’s something immensely satisfying to him about eating warm food out under the open sky with Hawkeye and no one else around, about being handed a cup of coffee that Hawkeye made, even instant coffee. Hawkeye laughs. “I’m serious,” B.J. says. “Thank you.”

Hawkeye rolls his eyes. “It’s nothing,” he says.

“Hey, you’re the one who wanted to make me breakfast. Let me say thank you.”

“When we get back to the city, I’ll make you a real one,” Hawkeye says. As soon as he says it, he feels a stab of fear. Talking about a future, even one that’s just a few days off, isn’t something he’s sure he wants to do. “I mean—if—“

“I’m looking forward to it,” B.J. says. He savors the coffee, the oatmeal, and the promise of a few more days of this, at least.

They finish up breakfast, doing the dishes and stashing their food back up in the tree before setting off on another hike. They’re able to keep a better rhythm with each other today, Hawkeye doing his best to actually pace himself and B.J. feeling more energized than yesterday. For a while, they just walk in silence through the woods. Each of them taking in their surroundings, taking in the fact that the other is still here after last night, and scared for what comes next.

Hawkeye’s the one to speak up first, of course. He’s never been one to sit well with silence. He has so many questions he wants to ask B.J., things he wants to finally say out loud. But he still can’t quite seem to make himself do it. So he falls back on an old trick and borrows someone else’s words. “So when you said, last night, that you didn’t _know_ before me—well, to quote Ella singing Gershwin, ‘How long has this been going on?’ I mean, when did you realize?” _Please tell me this is something that could last. Something you’ve wanted for as long as I have._

B.J. laughs. “When did I realize I was in love with you?”

Hawkeye smiles like he still can’t believe it’s true. “Yes,” he says.

“Well—I mean, in some ways, from the minute I met you. I showed up in Korea, and there you were, ranting about having missed Trapper by ‘ten lousy minutes,’ and I thought, _Oh, I’m in trouble._ I wasn’t really able to admit it to myself for a while, but I started falling for you right then.”

“Right then?” Hawkeye asks. He still doesn’t really believe it, even as B.J.’s saying it.

“Yes,” B.J. says. “And it wasn’t one moment, after that, when I knew. It really was kind of like you said. It was, ‘How long has this been going on?’ I kind of had to admit it to myself in bits and pieces, and by the time I realized, I was already so deep in it that I couldn’t have gotten out, even if I’d wanted to. But I didn’t want to. I don’t want to.” It helps that they’re walking, as he says this, that he can look at the trail instead of straight at Hawkeye. He manages to ask, “How long—when did you know?” He has to know.

It’s funny to Hawk, hearing the uncertainty in B.J.’s voice. Realizing that B.J. might want reassurance of Hawkeye’s own feelings as much as Hawkeye wants reassurance of B.J.’s. “Oh, that’s easy,” he says. “The moment I met you. I knew. Right then.”

“Right then? No slow revelation?”

“Right then. I showed up ranting like a lunatic, and there you were, asking me—remember the first thing you said to me? You asked if you could help.”

B.J. laughs. “All this time…”

“We could’ve made a go of it and gotten a discharge,” Hawkeye says.

“Potter wouldn’t have discharged us, ” B.J. says.

“Maybe not.”

“And you wouldn’t have wanted to get discharged. Not really, I don’t think.”

“Are you kidding me? If I knew I could’ve packed you up and taken you with me? I would’ve been out of there in a second.”

“I don’t think you could’ve left those ki—those young men.”

Hawkeye shrugs. “Guess we’ll never know.”

“I guess not,” B.J. says.

There’s another silence. Hawkeye wants to let everything lie, he really does. _You’re in love with me, and I’m in love with you, and ain’t love grand?_ But he’s never been good at letting things lie. Something about talking about the past—he can’t put it off any longer, can’t let himself have even one good morning before plunging, finally, into questions about the future. If this thing between B.J. and him isn’t going to work out, well—he knows the longer he lets himself sink into it, the harder it’ll hurt if it ends up getting ripped out from underneath him. “Beej, do you—I mean, when you told me, last night—when you said I could stay… how serious were you?”

B.J. stops walking, and Hawkeye follows suit. B.J. says, “Well, I mean—I know you’ve got your dad, back in Maine, and that job, and I don’t know if you could ever see yourself being a west-coaster, but… but I meant it. The offer’s on the table. I mean—we could—I mean, I don’t know what the logistics would look like. But we could figure something out.” B.J. thinks of Erin, then, of course. His daughter, the one they’ve barely talked about so far. He doesn’t know what the solution is for the way Hawkeye’s trauma will intersect with having a kid around, but he wants to believe there is one. She comes first, of course. But he hopes he won’t have to make the choice.

“You’re not—you know you don’t have to say that just because—just because I’ve made a mess of my life, you know,” Hawkeye says.

B.J. makes sure to look Hawkeye square in the eyes, then, before he says, “I want you, Hawkeye. I’ve wanted you from the moment I met you. I’ve wanted to build some kind of life with you. And I don’t know exactly what that would look like, but if you wanted to… If you wanted to try…”

“I want…” Hawkeye starts, stops, gathers himself, and begins again. “I want to stay. My dad—I mean, he doesn’t need me taking care of him or anything. That was—well, that was the reason I was giving myself for going home, going somewhere that you wouldn’t be. But the job—I mean, it’s not like I’d mind giving it up, exactly, if I were sure I could get another one out here. But they put me on leave, B.J.—I mean, I’m not exactly sure they’d give me a stellar recommendation to get one out here.”

“We can fix it,” B.J. says on instinct, before he even has time to think it through. They can fix it because they _have_ to fix it. Because Hawkeye has to stay. “I know people in the city. I can help you get a job somewhere.” He doesn’t care about Hawkeye’s drinking, about the fact that he’s been put on leave from his job back in Maine. B.J.’s never seen Hawk be anything other than a skilled and attentive surgeon. And he knows—he _knows_ —that this isn’t how it works, but he can’t help hoping that now that he and Hawk are going to be together—because they have to be together—that Hawkeye will get better.

Hawkeye, though, just shakes his head. “I can’t ask you to do that, put your own reputation at stake, not after I messed up at this other job. Not when—not when there’s no guarantees I wouldn’t do the same here.”

“You won’t—you’re a skilled surgeon and—and a good man. I trust you.”

Hawkeye laughs. “I don’t know if you should.”

“I just—“ B.J. starts, but doesn’t know what to say next. _I just want you. I don’t care what it costs me. My reputation, my job. I want you to stay. So stay._

Though he says none of this out loud, Hawkeye shakes his head again, as if he heard it all. “Beej, I—I don’t want to stick around just to fuck up your life.”

“So you don’t want to stick around,” B.J. says, dead flat, no intonation.

“No, I—“ Hawkeye looks around, making doubly sure there’s no other hikers around on the trail, then closes the distance between himself and B.J., wrapping his arms around the other man, not looking at him but mumbling into his shoulder, “I want to stay more than I’ve ever wanted anything else.”

“So stay,” B.J. says simply. “Come live with me.”

“How can I, though? It’s not just—B.J., you’ve got Erin, and I—I can’t move in with you and her. You know that, right? I mean, my drinking alone is enough—but then. I mean. I still—I’m still not good around kids, a lot. I try. I’ve tried. It’s okay, sometimes. But it’s. It’s very hit or miss, for me.”

B.J. feels tears welling up in his eyes. He’s grateful that Hawkeye’s still got his arms around him, that Hawkeye isn’t looking at him right now. He doesn’t want Hawkeye to see him cry. He struggles to get ahold of himself, then says, “So is that—is this it, then? Some weekend together? You’ll write, you’ll call, you’ll visit again in a few years? This thing is over before it started?” After he says this, B.J. starts to cry in earnest. Silent tears, but the kind that wrack his body nonetheless.

“No, I—“ Hawkeye pulls back then, looks B.J. full in the face. B.J.’s never felt more exposed in his life. He feels like something essential is being ripped out of him. Hawk feels it too. “I don’t want to leave. I—I mean… why don’t we sit down, or something?” Hawkeye says, looking around.

He pulls a bit away from B.J. but leaves one hand clutching B.J.’s shirt. He leads the way to a fallen tree only a few feet off the path, sitting down on it and pulling B.J. down next to him. Taking his hand. It helps that he can take B.J.’s hand for this conversation. He’s never really been able to do that before. Last time he did, it was because B.J. was hurt, needed surgery. A surgery that Hawk couldn’t perform. Hawkeye hopes that this time, he’ll be able to fix this for B.J. For both of them. He’s surprised at himself for not falling apart too. But when it comes to B.J.—when it’s clear that B.J. needs him—Hawk’s usually able to find some way of holding it together.

He remembers the last time he held B.J. as he cried, on the floor of Potter’s office. He’d told B.J. then that they would all go home, sooner or later, back when he’d thought B.J.’s home would be with Peggy and Erin. And now Hawk’s found out that it’s not with Peggy that B.J. wants to make a home. Hawkeye should be elated. He was, just earlier this morning. But now, he feels the same anxiety he felt that night in Potter’s office; he worries that B.J.’s world is one that still doesn’t have space for him.

If it were just Hawk who would be hurt by this all falling apart, maybe he’d let it. He’s used to that. He’s used to not fitting into people’s lives for long, not the way he wants to. He’s used to the way this hurts, already knows the type of scar it would leave.

But looking at B.J., it’s clear that this would scar him too. So Hawkeye says, “I’d drop everything. I’d move across the country for you. I just don’t want to be—I can’t be a burden. I can’t move here and have you picking up all the pieces for me.”

“You don’t—I want you here,” B.J. says, calming down a little.

“Well, good,” Hawkeye says. “So what do we do now?”

It’s the same question he asked B.J. earlier this morning, but it carries a whole different weight now. This time, he knows there’s not going to be an easy answer. It’s not, let’s get up and eat a meal together. Let’s take a walk through the woods. But Hawkeye hopes there’s still _some_ answer for them.

B.J. takes a deep breath, wipes away his tears. He says, “I want you to live with me. I mean, you know, if—I know there are other concerns. But what if—I mean every other week, like this week, Erin’s at Peggy’s anyway. At least those weeks…”

Hawkeye laughs. “One kiss and we’re moving in together?”

B.J. looks at him then, something dark flashing in his eyes. “So that’s what happened between us? One kiss.”

“That’s not—“ Hawkeye can see he’s going to have to tread carefully here if he wants to keep from messing everything up. B.J.’s got his insecurities bleeding out the edges of his sentences, too. _I’m not the only one with baggage,_ Hawkeye reminds himself. He sighs. Starts again. He keeps being tempted to couch his feelings in a joke, but he fights the impulse as best he can. Tries not to self-sabotage. Thinks about what Margaret would say, if she were here. She’d tell him to tell the truth. “I just want to make sure—you know, I’m just worried it’s moving too fast, or something. That you’ll—what if you don’t like it?” _I’m worried you’ll decide you don’t want me after all._

“Hawk, we already lived together in a small tent in Korea. I don’t see what the deal-breaker would be.”

Hawkeye starts to laugh then. He can’t help himself. B.J. gives him an odd look. Hawkeye laughs so hard he starts crying real tears. When he finally composes himself, he says, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. It’s just—“ he starts to laugh again, then gets ahold of himself— “You know, what if it was having Frank and Charles there that was really the key ingredient all along?”

B.J. starts to laugh, then, too. He’s grateful for the joke, for _something_ to hold them together as he feels like everything’s breaking down. “I really doubt that was it,” he says. “But if we get a few weeks in and it seems like that’s what’s missing, maybe we can convince Margaret to part with Charles and send him our way.”

Hawkeye starts to speak, then stops himself. “No, what is it?” asks B.J.

“Just that—well, it might be easier to convince Margaret to part with Charles than you think, is all.”

“Are they having marital problems?” B.J. asks, plunged momentarily into a whole new set of concerns. Margaret hadn’t mentioned anything the last few times he’d talked to her. And, true, he’d always been a _bit_ confused by Margaret and Charles shacking up together, but he doesn’t want her to have to go through a second divorce.

“No, that’s not—You’ll have to ask her yourself,” Hawkeye says. “I’ve already said too much.”

“Alright, well,” B.J. says, reluctant to get back to the conversation they were having but wanting to reach some sort of conclusion. “Margaret’s potential marital problems aside.” _I’ll call her soon._ “What are we going to do? About you and me, I mean. I know you don’t want me to give you recommendations, and maybe your current boss wouldn’t either, but there’s always Potter. I mean, all that work you did over in Korea has to count for something. Maybe—well, how long do you have off from work right now?”

“I’m on leave for a month,” Hawkeye says. “So about two weeks left after this one.”

“Well couldn’t you—“ B.J. stops. Thinks. Then he says, slowly, “What if we didn’t have to decide everything right now? What if you got them to extend your leave? I don’t know what kind of circumstances you left under, and how they’d feel about that, but if we had a few months—I mean, I know what I want. I want to be with you. But if we had a few months to see, you know. About the details. About the job, or if you’re worried about living together, or how it is with—I mean, you could meet Erin, and—“

“Yeah,” Hawkeye says slowly. Even as B.J. says he wants him long-term, Hawk’s scared that if he gives this thing a few months, B.J. will change his mind. But it’s better than nothing. It’s better than packing it all up a week or two from now. And in some ways, it makes him feel _more_ secure. B.J. wanting him for the rest of his life—he has trouble feeling that’s true. But B.J. wanting him to hang around for a few months—maybe he can talk himself into believing that, at least.

As Hawkeye’s thinking all this, B.J. adds, “And you could—you could see if there’s any programs you want to do, for, you know… the _drinking_ …”

“I don’t want to do any programs,” Hawkeye says. “I’ve already had quite the talk with Margaret about it, so don’t go trying to change my mind on this one.”

B.J. puts his hands up. “Okay. Not that. But still. A few months, to see how it goes? I have friends in town, you know… I’m sure we could find some sort of—I mean, you could couch surf, or get a hotel, or something, during the weeks when I have Erin, and—I know it’s crazy, but…”

“No, no,” Hawkeye says. “I think it could work. I don’t know. I want it to work. Maybe it is crazy, but I want to try it.” He’s scared, even as he’s saying it. He’s scared his boss will say no, that they’ll need him back at work as planned. He’s scared that he’ll try it, only to have B.J. get sick of him, send him home at the end of a few weeks. He’s scared he’ll mess it all up, somehow. But the fear doesn’t outweigh the fact that he doesn’t want to go home alone, to give up on this before it’s even started. “Okay,” Hawkeye says, grinning. “I mean, are we gonna try this thing?”

B.J. grins back. “I think so,” he says. B.J. stands up first, putting out his hand with a little flourish to pull Hawkeye close to him. “So can I kiss you again?” he says.

“I wish you would,” Hawkeye replies. Again, they both glance around at the trail to make sure they’re alone, and the kiss is short, but the kind that lingers even after they’ve pulled away, after they’re back on the path. “I guess we should keep walking?” Hawkeye says.

“I’m not ready to turn around yet,” B.J. says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading!! As always, people's kudos & especially comments are so appreciated 💕
> 
>  **edit: Having written 130k of just beejhawk fics in 12 weeks, I think I need 2 take a few weeks break before writing ch9. I still definitely am going to finish this fic and am excited about my plans for upcoming chapters, but I wanna make sure that I'm actually having fun when I write them! In the meantime there are like. six other beejhawk fics on my page if you haven't checked those out yet lol.** 💕


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you once again to [horaetio](https://archiveofourown.org/users/horaetio/pseuds/horaetio) for beta reading!

B.J.’s humming with nervous energy as they pack up the car to head back to the city. He knows—he _knows_ —that they agreed to try, really try. But he also knows it’ll be different—and in some ways, a lot harder—when the relationship is no longer contained within the sweet confines of a camping trip, but instead sprawls out into the real world. B.J. pauses as he’s sticking his backpack into the trunk, just gives himself a moment to breath. But as he does so, Hawkeye, seemingly having sensed that B.J.’s on edge, comes up behind him and wraps his arms around B.J.

“Relax,” Hawkeye says, when B.J. jumps a little. “There’s no one else around. I checked.”

“But there will be. Soon.”

“Beej, we made it through three years at a MASH unit together. I think we can weather San Francisco.”

What B.J. thinks is, _But we weren’t **together** then, not really_. But he’s starting to realize that he’s not the only one with insecurities, and not wanting Hawk to take things the wrong way, what he says is, “You’re right.”

“Of course I’m right,” Hawkeye says, giving B.J. a smile and then a little kiss. B.J. feels his cheeks grow warm as he finally slams the trunk shut. Hawkeye pulls away, just a bit.

“Well,” B.J. says. “Shall we?”

“I think we shall,” Hawkeye says.

They drive in silence for a while, just watching the trees go by. Hawkeye fiddles with the radio incessantly, turning it on and then off again about once every five minutes, trying to see when they’ll get reception again. After about an hour, the radio comes back in, and some song by the Ink Spots fills the car. B.J.’s been trying not to take Hawk’s fidgeting personally, so it’s comforting when, paradoxically, Hawk starts talking as soon as the radio comes back in. So it wasn’t him searching for a distraction from the silence, from B.J., then. Just another nervous habit.

“So,” Hawk says. “We’ve got that dinner with your friends, right?”

B.J. feels a jolt at the question. Just a few days ago, he’d been so worried about the dinner, but Hawkeye’s question makes him realize he’d completely put it out of his mind. “Yeah,” he tells Hawkeye. “I guess we do.”

“Don’t sound so excited,” Hawkeye says.

“It’s not—it’s just—“ B.J. doesn’t know how to convey his worries to Hawk without upsetting him.

Luckily, Hawkeye looks over at him as he’s stumbling around for an explanation and merely grins. “What?” Hawkeye says. “Too early in the relationship to be introducing the boyfriend to the friends?”

B.J. snorts. “Boyfriend?”

“What?” Hawk says, in mock offense, although B.J. suspects there might be some real feeling under the joke. “Is that not what I am?”

“I don’t know,” B.J. says. “After three years of living in a tent together, and you flying all the way across the country to see me—“

“Don’t let it get go to your head,” Hawkeye interjects.

“—it just feels, I don’t know. Reductive.”

Now it’s Hawkeye’s turn to let out a small snort. “What term would you prefer? ‘War buddy’?”

“God, no,” B.J. says. There’s a pause, then he adds, “I mean, I guess we do—you know, we have to figure out how to do this. What to tell people.”

“We could tell them that I’m sick in the head, and you volunteered to play nurse,” Hawkeye says.

“I’m serious, Hawk,” B.J. says. Hawkeye _knows_ B.J. is serious, and that’s exactly why he wants to avoid the conversation. He doesn’t want to feel like some problem that has to be explained away. Still, he knows B.J.’s right. They’re going to have to figure out what to tell people.

“I don’t know,” Hawkeye says. “Couldn’t we tell people some approximation of the truth? That I’m here—we could tell them that I’m here for my health.”

B.J. laughs. “The doctor recommended the air here would be good for you.”

“Yes, I was prescribed specifically Pacific ocean air.” Hawkeye says, almost sing-song, trying to make some sort of joke out of it. He’s glad when B.J. lets the conversation drop with that comment, apparently satisfied with the health excuse. _I really am here to get better_ , Hawkeye thinks. _I just hope I can._

B.J. considers asking Hawk about Percy, Tommy and Lucy’s kid—asking if Hawkeye feels up for being around kids, or if B.J. should see if Lucy’s mom can babysit Saturday evening. But B.J. doesn’t want to make Hawkeye feel like he’s an imposition, an inconvenience. He knows they can’t keep tip-toeing around the kid issue forever, but he figures Hawkeye meeting Tommy and Lucy is maybe enough for them to tackle this first weekend back in the city. It’s not unusual for Tommy and Lucy to have Lucy’s mom take the kids when they’re hosting, anyway, and B.J. knows they aren’t the kind of people to pry into the weird favor, if he asks. So he figures he’ll just go ahead and talk to Tommy about it without having to get into it with Hawkeye here and now.

So instead, what he says to Hawkeye is, “I can’t believe you’ve been here a few days already and have still barely seen the city.”

“And whose fault is that?” Hawkeye says. They fall into a conversation about what Hawkeye still wants to see and B.J. still wants to show him.

By the time they get back to the city, B.J.’s feeling much more comfortable than he was when they set out on the drive. Talking about the city with Hawkeye makes him feel in control. He knows this place. It’s his home, and he gets to show it off to Hawkeye, and to show Hawkeye off to the city. _Look who it is, San Francisco. Look who I brought home with me._

They pull onto B.J.’s street and find it looking the same as they left it, if a little more typically foggy. Still, B.J. feels almost shy bringing Hawkeye back up to his apartment now, in broad daylight. It’s only when Hawkeye gives him a questioning look, though, that he realizes he’s been just sitting there for a long minute with the car off and the wheels curbed, but without making any moves to head inside. He shakes himself out of his worries, pulling his keys out of the ignition and proclaiming, “Here we are!” 

_Here we are indeed._

***

It’s Saturday night, and Tommy and Lucy are getting the apartment ready for B.J. and Hawkeye. Percy is already off with his grandmother. Lucy is finishing up the steak, while Tommy’s out in the living room looking through their records. “Do you know where my copy of _Bird and Diz_ went?” Tommy calls out to Lucy.

“I took it over to Ellen’s on our last date night,” she tells him.

“Hey, that’s _my_ record,” Tommy says as Lucy finishes the steak and comes in from the kitchen carrying the salad.

“That _I_ bought for you,” she replies. “Help me bring the dishes in from the kitchen, will you? The music choices can wait.”

“The music selection is _the_ most essential part of the night.”

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that to me just as I’m bringing out the full meal I just cooked,” Lucy says.

“I did the potatoes,” Tommy says as Lucy sets the salad on the table.

“Well, next time you have one of your friends over, I’ll make sure to be otherwise engaged, and you all can eat just potatoes for dinner.”

“Hey, I’m sorry,” Tommy says, grabbing Lucy’s now-free hands and pulling her in to dance with him despite the fact that he still hasn’t picked out any music yet. “You’re a damn good chef and a lovely hostess, and if my proclivities didn’t lie elsewhere. I’d be sure to fall in love with you and marry you all over again.”

Lucy laughs, rolling her eyes but allowing herself to get swept up in dancing with Tommy. “Well, I’m not so sure you’d be lucky enough to win me over if I weren’t playing for the other team.”

Tommy laughs. “Say,” he says. “Speaking of playing for the other team…”

“Don’t get started on this again,” Lucy says. “Just because B.J. is bringing by one guy for dinner at our place…”

“Just because he and Peg got a divorce and won’t really say why…”

‘That’s none of our business.”

Tommy gives Lucy a look as they keep dancing. “Since when have you ever considered anything in our friends’ lives ‘none of our business’?”

“I just don’t want you to get your hopes up, is all.”

“Look, we’ll have a great dinner either way. I’m just glad B.J.’s coming by. It’s been too long. I’m _just_ saying, I _will_ be keeping my eye and ear to the ground in regards to just _what_ , exactly, the relationship between him and Hawkeye is. And you could help, if you wanted. You have a sense for these things, even better than I do.”

“Fine. Yes,” Lucy says. Their marriage has been a lavender one from the beginning, but there’s a real affection between the two of them, as well as a shared lamentation that their respective partners, Axel and Ellen, don’t _quite_ know how to let lose. So they do relish the continued opportunity to throw dinner parties together, in addition to all the other benefits of their situation. Normally, they’d invite Axel and Ellen too, and cajole them into having fun by the end of the night, but B.J.’s been in such a delicate emotional place ever since the war that they don’t like to overwhelm him.

As they continue dancing without music, there’s a knock at the door. Tommy springs away from Lucy and to the door, opening it up to find B.J. and Hawkeye standing on the other side.

“B.J.!” Tommy says as Lucy makes her way over as well. “And you must be Hawkeye.”

“And you must be the Tommy I’ve heard so much about,” Hawkeye says.

“The one and only,” Tommy says.

As they shake hands, B.J. hugs Lucy, then says, “We brought hors d'oeuvres,” slightly unwrapping the foil from the plate he’s holding to show her crackers with crème de fresh, salmon, and capers.

“See, _these_ men know what they’re doing in the kitchen,” Lucy tells Tommy.

“It’s just fish on crackers!” he says.

“It’s plated very nicely,” she says.

“It’s gorgeous,” Tommy says to B.J. “Aw, come here, man.” As he pulls B.J. in for a hug, Lucy introduces herself to Hawkeye, and he shakes her hand. B.J. watches as they each give each other equally winning smiles.

Tommy ushers everyone into the apartment, while Lucy takes the plate from B.J.

“Would you be a doll and help me with the rest of everything in the kitchen?” she says to Hawkeye. “Tommy’s useless.”

“Men,” Hawkeye says dramatically, rolling his eyes and affecting an overworked- prima-donna stance for just a moment before snapping back to his usual way of occupying a room, sort of lazy and wound up at the same time. “Sure,” he says brightly.

Tommy catches B.J.’s eyes following Hawkeye nervously. “He’ll be fine,” he tells B.J., giving him a gentle tap on the arm. “You know she tries to be gentle with the new ones. Oh, come on, it’s good to see you,” he continues, unable to resist breaking into a grin and throwing an arm around B.J.’s neck. “It’s been too long. Come help me pick the music. How’ve you been?”

B.J. can’t help but loosen up at least a little under the warmth of Tommy’s smile, the feeling of his arm casually around him. He’s got Hawkeye now, and his crush on Tommy is long past, but there’s still a special sort of intimacy that exists between the two of them. It’s the ease that comes with having known someone for so long, understanding implicitly all the parameters of the relationship. And even after all this time, it’s hard for B.J. not to melt just a little under the warmth of Tommy’s charisma, the special light of his attention.

 _How’ve you been? I’ve been in love, Tommy_ , B.J. wants to say. He wants to spill it all to his friend right now in the living room, with Lucy and Hawkeye just a room away. _Years_ of keeping this secret when it was a cross to bear, and of course he’d often wanted to confide in Tommy then, too; but he finds, surprisingly, that his newfound happiness is even harder to keep to himself. He’s been leaning on Tommy a lot since he got home, and Tommy knows him well; well enough to be aware that B.J.’s been going through something more than just the divorce. So he wants to offer up his good news partially as a reassurance to Tommy that he’s okay, to pay back the debt of his previous unhappiness by sharing this new joy. 

But more than that, he wants to tell Tommy simply because they’ve shared so much of their lives up to this point. They’ve been there through each other’s broken bones and heartbreaks, been best men at each other’s weddings and godfathers to each other’s kids. So B.J. desperately wants Tommy to share in this, too. This man who knows him so well—B.J. wants to surprise him, and laugh, and say, _I didn’t know, either. Not till a few years ago._ B.J., as reserved as he can be, for so long has talked through most of the hard stuff and shared most of the joy with Tommy. He wants to share this, too. It’ll make it feel real in a way that it doesn’t quite yet.

But he doesn’t, of course. He can’t. He can’t, for the life of him, picture Tommy taking it badly, being disgusted, throwing him out. Even with all his worrying, even for how often B.J. pictured _Hawkeye’s_ potential disgust, Tommy’s friendship has always felt like the closest to unconditional love that B.J.’s ever come. But it’s precisely _because_ of that that he doesn’t want to test the limits of Tommy’s friendship, to risk shattering that illusion.

So instead, he simply says, as Tommy leads him over to the records, “It’s been good.” Then he grins broadly despite himself.

“Good? You’ve been good?” Tommy says, grinning back. “You look good.”

“I feel good,” B.J. says.

“You look good _and_ you feel good? Two for one special!” B.J. just grins more at that. “Come on, man, I can tell you’ve got _something_ you wanna confide in your old pal Tommy. Spill.”

“Nope,” B.J. says. “Absolutely nothing.” He knows he’s not doing a convincing job of lying, though. Tommy can tell he’s got something he wants to confess, but Tommy doesn’t press him further, maybe just because B.J.’s in such a good mood. So they just stand there in the living room, grinning at each other like two idiots.

***

Meanwhile, in the kitchen, Hawkeye is jumpier than ever. He’s running on about seven different high-energy emotions. He’s curious about B.J.’s long-term friends and, despite himself, somewhat desperate to impress. Unbeknownst to B.J., he also had just a _few_ shots of vodka before they headed over. Okay, maybe more than a few. The mix of the alcohol and emotion has him feeling giddy, and he’s a bit worried about having made that joke about “men” in the living room, although neither Lucy nor Tommy seemed to bat an eye at it. It crosses his mind that he and Lucy are standing here in the kitchen together like two women who are about to start gossiping about their husbands.

A feeling of hilarity overtakes him—at having had the thought, at how much he wishes it were true (that B.J. _were_ his husband), at the whole situation—and he has to hold back a laugh, so Lucy doesn’t think he’s crazy, at least not right off the bat. Better to ease her into that particular realization. He can drop it into conversation later. _Oh, did B.J. tell you about my convalescence at the army sanitarium?_ It’s a fun party trick to keep in his back pocket, for when he wants to make everyone uncomfortable and bring down the mood.

There’s not _much_ to do in the kitchen. Mostly, they just need to get everything out of pots and pans and onto plates. “So,” Lucy says, as they’re doing that, “you’re from Maine, right?”

“Crabapple Cove,” Hawkeye says, surprised at just how far away _home_ feels just now, even though it hasn’t yet been a full week that he’s been gone.

“I’m from the East Coast, too,” Lucy says. “New York City, though. Very different energy. San Francisco feels like a small town to me,” she laughs. Somehow, hearing that she’s from New York City doesn’t surprise Hawkeye at all.

“How’d you end up moving all the way out here?” Hawkeye asks.

“It’s a long story,” she says, smiling. “I almost kind of just fell into it. Sometimes you meet someone, you know, and your life starts going in a whole other direction than you ever saw for yourself.” The way she says it, that she met someone, Hawkeye’s not sure it’s Tommy that she’s referring to.

“Do you ever miss it?” Hawkeye says.

“Miss what?”

“New York. The East Coast.”

“All the time,” Lucy says. “But not more than I’d miss everything I have here.” She gives him a careful look. “Why?” she says. “You thinking of moving out here yourself?” Again, she says it almost like it’s a joke, but Hawkeye swears he can hear another question underneath the one she actually asked.

With a start, he realizes that it’s not supposed to be a secret, that he’s thinking about staying. The complicated part is explaining _why_ he’s considering it. So he opts for something in between the truth and a lie, hoping if he keeps his answer vague, Lucy won’t ask him any more questions. “For a little while, at least,” he tells her.

She doesn’t ask him any more about it, but she _does_ say, “It’s awfully nice of you, flying all the way out here just to see B.J.” Hawkeye’s only known this woman for a few minutes, but he should’ve known she wasn’t one to let an issue drop. It actually makes him like her all the more, actually, only he wishes that her intense focus weren’t directed so keenly on him at the moment.

“Yeah, well, I figured it was more practical than having him meet me under the clock in Grand Central,” Hawkeye blurts out before he really realizes what he’s saying. He realizes that when it comes to him and B.J., he’s still used to the microcosm of Korea, where everyone would ignore whatever crazy bullshit of the day he was spewing. He realizes that people from outside the 4077 might not quite know how to take all his jokes about the two of them. But in some ways, he really _does_ feel like the new boyfriend getting interrogated, and this sort of joke-telling is really his only solid go-to for taking the pressure off himself.

Luckily, as all these thoughts begin racing through his head, Lucy just laughs. “Grand Central,” she says. “Was that the original plan?”

“Something like that,” Hawkeye tells her.

By this point, everything is ready to go, so they both grab a few dishes and make their way into the living room, where B.J. and Tommy are standing across from each other grinning like they’re in the most good-natured standoff in the world.

“Appetizers,” Lucy says, holding up the plate B.J. and Hawkeye brought, as well as some crab cakes.

“Oh, Lucy, those look amazing,” B.J. says, snatching a crab cake off the plate before she can even set it down.

“Music, music, music,” Tommy mutters to himself, looking through his records. Then, more loudly, he declares, “We must have music!” He holds up a record triumphantly for a second before putting it on. Cole Porter comes blaring over the speaker. Hawkeye can’t help himself; as he and Lucy finish setting down the plates and seat themselves on the sofa, Hawkeye begins to hum along.

“Finally, B.J., you bring home a man with taste,” Tommy says. Hawkeye watches as B.J. blushes red at that.

“I couldn’t be friends with a man who didn’t like Cole Porter,” B.J. replies, and Hawkeye notices just a slight emphasis on the word “friends.” _Don’t overcompensate_ , he thinks.

Tommy, though, seems to think nothing special of the comment. He dances just a little to the music before he says, “Drinks! We must have drinks!” He dances into the kitchen and comes back with a bottle of some sort of sparkling seltzer. “Our finest vintage,” he says, holding it up and making a show of it before pouring it into four tumblers. After he hands B.J. a glass, they sit down in the two chairs that are gathered around the coffee table. Tommy hands Lucy and Hawkeye glasses, too.

Hawkeye immediately hops onto Tommy’s joke, taking it a step further and bringing his glass to his nose to sniff it (which makes B.J. roll his eyes), before saying, “Ah, yes, this is a ’36 vintage, if I’m not mistaken? I’m getting hints of apples and CO2.”

Tommy laughs, playing along. “No, man, this is from ’35.”

“One of the best years for apples, so I’ve heard,” Hawkeye replies.

“You heard right,” Tommy says. “That was the year I bought the orchard, in fact.”

“Oh, really?” Hawkeye says, raising his eyebrows.

“Yeah, it’s an hour or so drive inland, a great few acres. We’ve got your Yellow Bellflowers, your Autumn Crisps, and of course your McIntoshes. The soil out there is great for McIntoshes.”

B.J., who knows how to read both Tommy and Hawkeye, can tell that Hawkeye’s no longer sure if they’re still joking around, or if Tommy’s serious now. And B.J. can tell that Tommy is barely holding back a laugh, which makes _B.J._ struggle to hold back a laugh. Hawkeye glances at B.J., who just shrugs, then at Lucy, who leans back with her glass in hand and rolls her eyes. At this, Hawkeye starts laughing, and soon everybody else does too.

“You almost got me,” Hawkeye tells Tommy.

“I know, man,” he replies. B.J. can’t help feeling just a little delighted. Hawkeye doesn’t usually get bested in something like that, get taken in by other people’s jokes. B.J. loves both Tommy and Hawkeye, and it’s fun to see them play off each other like this. Things are going smoother than he’d even hoped for, and he feels himself relax, just a little.

Soon enough, they’ve moved on from appetizers and are seated around the table in the dining room, eating dinner and all talking over one another. Lucy’s telling Hawkeye about her job doing advocacy work to reform the foster care system, and Hawkeye’s asking her a bunch of extremely detailed questions about it, getting into the nitty-gritty of obtaining grant funding and the like. In return, he’s explaining meatball surgery to her, and she’s asking about details that do _not_ necessarily lend themselves to dinner parties. Lucy seems pretty fascinated by most of it – she’s the type who wants to know as much detail about everything as possible, and almost looks as though she’s cataloguing everything Hawkeye is telling her in case _she_ ever has to perform surgery in the field.

But as Hawk keeps talking, B.J. can read his friends’ faces, and he can tell it’s getting to be a _little_ bit much for both of them. Without thinking about it, he reaches out and puts a hand on Hawkeye’s arm, just for a moment. Hawkeye glances down at it, and immediately seems to register what B.J. means by the touch, because he cuts himself off almost mid-sentence. Still, in the silence that follows the abrupt end of Hawkeye’s story, B.J. becomes all too aware of the point of connection between them and has to be careful not to yank his hand away too quickly, as he knows that would draw even more attention to it.

It seems to him that Hawkeye’s a little less on the social graces than usual. It’s true that Hawkeye sometimes forgets that listening to his war stories can have a greater effect on others than telling them seems to have on him. Usually, though, when he realizes that he should abandon a particular thread of conversation, he’s quick to supply a new one, or at the very least some sort of joke, in its place. B.J. wonders if Hawkeye is even more nervous about meeting his friends than he thought—he’s been showboating even more than usual tonight—or if Hawkeye’s had a bit too much to drink.

It’s not something they’ve talked about yet, not really. They haven’t set up any sort of boundaries or expectations. B.J. knows Hawkeye’s probably trying to hide his drinking both out of guilt and an attempt to keep B.J. on the wagon, but B.J. is realizing that it makes him feel off kilter, not knowing when Hawkeye’s sober and when he’s not. He knows they probably spent a good third of their time in Korea drunk off their asses, but somehow it feels different now that he’s not knocking back martinis right alongside Hawkeye. He’s almost jealous – of Hawkeye still getting to drink, but also, weirdly, of there being this aspect of Hawkeye’s life that he’s not privy to.

Still, he does his best to shake off all his worries about it for the time being. He knows he can’t begin to address any of them here and now. Instead, he picks up the dropped thread of conversation and asks Tommy, “How is unionizing at the docks going with Axel?”

“Oh, about as good as unionizing ever goes,” Tommy says with a smile, though he sounds a little tired. “Really, though, it’s fine. We’re still in the phase of trying to talk to everyone about it one-on-one, kind of bring everyone around to the idea and make sure we’ve got a consensus behind us before we take _any_ of this to the bosses.”

“Oh, so you’re out there recruiting, you’d say?” Hawkeye says, a little grin on his face. Once again, as with the comment about the clock in grand central that he made to Lucy, he doesn’t know why he says it, and he can see B.J.’s face fall, just barely perceptibly, out of the corner of his eye. But there’s something about the way B.J. asks about Tommy _and Axel_ , about the way Tommy says “we” and not “I” when he replies. It reminds Hawkeye of the way he and B.J. used to be, back in Korea. A single unit. Potter joking about where Hawkeye’s “worse half” was. He knows B.J. probably would have told him if his childhood friend were a gay man, but then again, B.J. didn’t realize that _Hawkeye_ was a gay man until a few days ago. B.J. is obviously not very attuned to the sexualities of everyone around him. Besides, Hawkeye’s buzzing with the alcohol still in his system and a confidence that this won’t go badly for him.

And he’s right. Tommy raises his eyebrows just a bit and gives Hawkeye a little grin of his own as he says, “Yeah, you could say that.”

“Is that how you picked up Axel?” Hawkeye asks. He swears B.J. chokes a little on his drink next to him. “Met him down at the docks, got him into a little unionizing and other kinds of trouble?”

Tommy laughs. “The unionizing didn’t come in till later, but yeah, we’re in the same line of work, and sort of picked up from there. Met him when Lucy and I were still living in New York.”

“And he ended up way out on the West coast too?” Hawkeye asks. He feels B.J. kick him just a little, under the table, and he turns to B.J., adding, “What, I can’t ask the man a simple question about his friend? Seeing as I might land on the West Coast now, too, I’m curious how it is that other East Coasters ended up here.”

“What?” B.J. says, the picture of innocence. “I didn’t say anything.” But Hawkeye can tell he’s not happy about the conversation. On a rational level, Hawkeye knows it’s perfectly understandable that B.J. is nervous about Hawkeye asking Tommy searching questions, about Hawkeye dropping hints about their own arrangement. But the part of him that’s not rational just feels hurt, as if B.J. is keeping them a secret out of shame about Hawkeye. It doesn’t help that Hawkeye was so nervous about meeting Tommy and Lucy, and now he’s found that he really likes them, and his go-to when he likes people is to see how far he can push them.

Lucy and Tommy, by this point, can tell that there’s _some_ sort of tension between B.J. and Hawkeye. They’ve given each other a few looks at this point, although _they’ve_ managed to be subtle enough about it that Hawkeye and B.J. haven’t noticed. Tommy, seeking to diffuse the tension, answers, “Oh, well, Axel’s not from the East Coast, originally. He’s a Midwesterner at heart.”

Lucy gives a little snort. “I’ll say,” she interjects, but quickly adds, “A very sweet man, though.”

“He’s moved around a lot,” Tommy says. “Trying to figure out his place, I guess. We both got into some trouble, out in New York. We were working with the lowest of the low. I think we both wanted a fresh start—fresh starts, for different reasons. He’d actually spent some time out here before, a few years before New York. I think this time it’ll stick, though.”

“It worked out well,” Lucy says. “Tommy and Axel had become such good friends, and Axel’s wife, Ellen, and I go way back. It’s nice to have everyone all together still. If you do stick around, Hawkeye, we’ll have to have you and B.J. around again to meet them both.”

“That would be great,” Hawkeye says. New place and new time, but here he and B.J. are, being named as a unit again. He feels a little glow of warmth at it and forgets the unhappiness he was feeling just moments before. For a second, no one says anything, and it feels like something is hanging in balance, that whoever speaks next could tip the evening one direction or the other, although Hawkeye’s not quite sure what direction that might be.

Lucy and Tommy make eye contact, and then they both start to stand up and speak at once. “Well—“ Lucy says.

“I guess—“ Tommy says.

Then they stop, and smile at each other, and Lucy tells Tommy, “Well, I guess you and B.J. should do the dishes while Hawkeye and I retire to the living room for cigars.” She says it so warmly that all the tension leaves the room immediately.

“I guess we should,” Tommy says, smiling back at her and nudging B.J., prompting him to get up out of his chair and help. Tommy then proceeds to gather as many dishes from the table as he can manage at once, seemingly with no method to his madness. Hawkeye’s a bit worried Tommy’s going to break them, but through either skill, luck, or sheer force of will, Tommy seems to keep his hold on them all.

Having assured himself that a small disaster will not befall Tommy, Hawkeye asks Lucy, “So are we really going to smoke cigars, or…?” She hasn’t yet actually made a move to get up from the dining room table.

“Oh, well, we have some if you want one,” Lucy says, “But really I’m just giving Tommy a hard time about the after-dinner habits of his youth.” Tommy and B.J., who have come back out to the dining room once more to gather up the rest of the dishes, both laugh a little at that before making their way back into the kitchen.

“Ah, yes,” Hawkeye tells Lucy. “I remember youth.”

“Back before you wasted it all away?” she laughs.

“I wouldn’t say I wasted it. I misspent it, certainly.”

She laughs again. Hawkeye’s forgotten how much he likes doing that, making people laugh. It’s different, with B.J.; it’s easy, and he likes that it’s easy, but he’s forgotten the particular joy that comes from meeting strangers and winning them over. Especially when he likes someone as much as he likes Lucy. He wants to tell her, desperately, what he is to B.J.; he wants to take the fact that she keeps getting him alone as a sign that she’s maybe already realized that Hawkeye is more than just B.J.’s friend. He figures, though, that that must be wishful thinking. She’s probably just trying to give Tommy and B.J. time to catch up; they’re childhood friends, and from the sound of it, they haven’t seen each other in a while.

Still, B.J. lives here, in the city. They could catch up any time. Wouldn’t Tommy want to spend the evening getting to know Hawkeye? Unless, of course, if Hawkeye were B.J.’s significant other. Then, it might make sense for Lucy to want some time alone with Hawkeye, so they can get to know each other.

Before he can stop himself, Hawkeye leans in a little, towards Lucy, and says, “So you and Ellen go way back, huh?”

“Oh, sure.”

“Is it one of those, ‘So close we’re practically sisters’ sorts of deals?”

Lucy laughs. “No, I wouldn’t really put it that way.”

“And what way _would_ you put it?”

“Why are you so interested all of a sudden? Don’t tell me you’re keen on some woman you haven’t even met yet, and you’re trying to get me to put in a good word. Don’t forget, she _is_ married.”

“If Ellen won’t have me, then maybe you will. I’m a terminal bachelor, but I never let a little thing like marriage stand between me and a good time,” Hawkeye jokes, although the statement is not, by any stretch of the imagination, true. He makes sure to be over-the-top, even for him, clasping his hands to his heart for dramatic effect, lest Lucy really think he’s coming on to her.

“Well, I try not to, either, but I’m afraid you’re just not my type,” Lucy tells him, then actually reaches over and pats him on the knee, as if she’s consoling him. At this point, Hawkeye is _almost_ certain that they’re playing the same game.

“That’s too bad,” he tells her. “What is it about me? Is it my hair? I know I’m gray for my age, but I’d color it for you.”

“Better save yourself all that effort,” she tells him. “Besides, B.J.’s just one room over, and I don’t think he’d take too kindly to hearing you were out here trying your best to woo me.”

“Isn’t it Tommy I should be worried about?” Hawkeye says.

“Oh, he’s not the jealous type,” Lucy says.

Before he can stop himself, Hawkeye sighs and says, “But it’s true, B.J. is.”

As he says this, Lucy breaks out into a grin. “I’ll be damned!” she says. “Tommy was right.”

“No, no,” Hawkeye says. “You’ve got it all wrong. _I’ll_ be damned.”

“Oh, stop,” Lucy replies. “So, it’s true? You’re…”

“Yes, I’m…” Hawkeye replies, smiling at her. “And you are…”

Lucy smiles now too. “Yes, I’m…”

“You won’t dance the next one with me because Ellen’s already filled up your dance card?”

“But it sounds like you’ve promised to dance the next one with B.J., anyway.”

Hawkeye smiles. “I have.”

Lucy’s one of about ten people he’s ever revealed this part of himself to, and here they are, having only known each other for a few hours. Part of him feels it’s been much longer, even as part of him realizes just how much he still doesn’t know about her. But he feels like a whole world is opening up right before him. He wants to ask her everything at once, stay up till 3 a.m. talking like two kids at a sleepover after the lights are out. He wonders how many people she’s told about her and Ellen. About how she knew, about how they got together. About how they’ve _stayed_ together. Ever since he got back from Korea, he’s been feeling alienated from everyone around him, wondering how it is all the people he used to know still feel so far away. Maybe the problem is he knew everyone in Crabapple both too well and not at all. Maybe this is the chance to find some new sort of understanding with people, some new sort of belonging.

But he doesn’t know how to start. He never knows how to start. Luckily for him, Lucy says fondly, “We’re really glad B.J. found you, you know. Me and Tommy.” She hesitates, as if not sure how much to confide in this man she’s just met, but she leans in a bit and adds, “He’s always seemed a bit lonelier than was good for a person to be, but it was a new kind of lonely, after the war. This seems good for him.”

Hawkeye can feel his heart in his throat, at that. He’s not sure he can live up to what it is Lucy sees in him. He’s not sure he’s good for B.J. He realizes that this woman that he wants to get to know is someone who already knows B.J. very well, who knew B.J. before Hawkeye ever did. Hawkeye wants to slot into B.J.’s life as though he’s always been there, to be friends with his friends, to live in his house and wear his shirts and sing his favorite songs in the morning when he cooks him breakfast, but he doesn’t want to discount all the history that came before there was ever the two of them, together. He suddenly regrets having drunk as much as he did because he finds himself, rather unprecedentedly, at a loss for words.

“Well, it’s new,” he manages to get out, after a moment or two.

“I think it’ll hold,” Lucy says, and smiles at him again.

Before he has time to reply, B.J. and Tommy burst from the kitchen, both grinning like idiots, and B.J. says, “Boy do we have something to tell you.” 

***

B.J. gathers up as many dishes as he feels confident he can carry without dropping, which is remarkably less than Tommy, and follows Tommy into the kitchen. He can’t quite read Tommy; he knows the dishes need to be done, and he’s happy to help do them, but he feels like there was some sort of purposeful look that passed between Tommy and Lucy, and he’s not quite sure what it means. He’s worried Hawkeye’s off-putting to them; they’re such nice people that they’d never say anything in front of Hawkeye, but maybe they’ve guessed, as B.J. has, that he’s had a little too much to drink, and Tommy’s going to get all concerned-citizen on him. B.J. doesn’t _want_ to feel embarrassed by Hawkeye, but despite himself, he does, almost as much as he feels fiercely protective of him.

But Tommy, to B.J.’s surprise, only says, “I wash, you dry?”

“Sure,” says B.J. They have to go back out to the dining room one more time to grab the rest of the dishes, but then they get to work. B.J. stands there, waiting for Tommy to say something; he’s _sure_ Tommy’s got something on his mind. For a good few minutes, though, there’s just the sound of the water running.

Finally, though, Tommy breaks the silence. “Seems like a swell guy,” he says.

“Don’t start with me,” B.J. blurts out almost before Tommy’s done talking.

Tommy shuts off the water and puts down the plate he was rinsing, turning to B.J. with his eyebrows raised as he wipes his hands dry on his pants. “I’m not starting with you,” he says. “I’m serious. I meant it. I like him. Me and Lucy have been dying to meet him ever since you wrote me your first letter about him, what feels like about a million years ago at this point.” He pauses, then looks at B.J. a little incredulously. “What, did you think you were gonna bring someone over, and we were gonna send him right back out the door?”

He says it so kindly that B.J. almost wants to break a plate and walk out of the room, just so that Tommy will stop looking at him like that. But instead, he takes a deep breath. The way Tommy says, “Bring someone over,” B.J. almost thinks he knows exactly what Hawkeye really means to him. Again, as with earlier tonight, he wants so badly to tell Tommy. Almost as much as he wants to vehemently deny something that Tommy hasn’t even really said out loud.

“Ever since the first letter?” B.J. says carefully, casually.

Tommy smiles. “It reminded me of how I felt when I first met Axel.”

Something about the way Tommy says it, the hint of affection in his voice—something clicks into place for B.J. He’s seen Tommy and Axel together about a thousand times. Back when B.J. and Peg were still together, they’d have dinner together, the six of them—Peggy and B.J., Axel and Ellen, and Tommy and Lucy. And even after the divorce, B.J. would still often be invited over as the fifth wheel. As often as not, it would make him feel just as lonely as it did happy to still be included.

But he realizes now that it wasn’t always Lucy and Tommy or Axel and Ellen that made him jealous. Axel and Tommy were often the ones who made him feel the most lonely. The way they spoke to one another, the casual arm Tommy would drape around Axel, the way he’d tease him just enough but not too much—B.J. had thought, for these past few years, that he just missed being the friend Tommy was closest to. But he realizes now that the way Tommy and Axel were with each other, well—it isn’t dissimilar to his friendship with Hawkeye all those years during the war.

Unexpectedly, B.J. feels himself on the verge of tears. _It reminded me of how I felt when I first met Axel_. He wants, so desperately, to be right about this, for there to be one person in his life that he can open up to about everything he’s been through with Hawkeye, someone to process not just the last few days but the last few _years_ with. But all he can make himself say is, “How did you feel when you first met Axel?”

Tommy gives him a careful look, then says, “I was in love.”

It’s unequivocal. After a night of everyone dancing around the truth, there’s no other way to take the statement. And B.J. realizes, with the way that Tommy’s looking at him, a careful look still on his face, that he’s scared, too. Softly, smiling, B.J. says, “You too, Tee?”

Tommy breaks back out into a grin, at that. “Me, too,” he says.

It comes tumbling out, then, all at once—So was it a lavender marriage, with Peggy? Is it, with Lucy? So she and Ellen—? When did you know? When did _you_ know? And why didn’t you tell me? Well, I didn’t know, and then I didn’t know if you were, either! The nightclubs where Tommy used to go, the drinking and the dancing, where he’d arrive with Lucy but leave with some guy, stay out till 3 a.m.—“But then I met Axel, and the only place I wanted to be was dancing with him right there in the living room, with no music but what we were humming.” Tommy tells B.J. the whole of it, or as much of it as you can tell standing there in the kitchen with half the dishes still left to do, and B.J. can hear, in the story Tommy’s telling, some sort of hope for himself, too, some future for himself with Hawkeye stretching out past days and weeks into years. If Tommy can have it, he can have it, too.

So B.J. tells Tommy his own story, too—the love that’s been three years and three day and a lifetime, all at once. Worry and hope and joy all tumbling out of different parts of the story, and in unexpected ways, and once the telling is over, he wants to start over and just tell it all over again, till he’s told it all the ways he can. But they’re still just there in the kitchen with the dishes to do, and Hawkeye and Lucy are right out there in the other room. B.J. feels like he and Tommy are teenagers again. It feels like all those years after school, when they’d have to go home for dinner but still have more to talk about, and it somehow made them happier to leave with some things left unsaid. To know that there was something to almost look forward to about homeroom the next morning, when they wouldn’t even really feel awake yet, but still they’d pick the conversation from yesterday right back up, as if they’d only just paused to take a breath, as if their whole lives was just one long story they were telling together.

B.J. knows that this whole thing with Hawkeye is a lot more complicated than anything they were going through in school, but somehow, the weight of it all—those years of unrequited, war-time love, and his worries about Hawkeye’s drinking and how they’re going to really make this thing work—the weight of it all just melts away, with Tommy standing there still grinning at him. It feels, for the moment, like an uncomplicated schoolboy crush, and B.J. loves Tommy for that, for the fact that just one look from him can do that for B.J., allow him one evening of just being happy without worrying about what comes next.

Tommy must be thinking along the same lines, because he says, “Beej, look, we gotta—I gotta take you out on the water sometime this week, we gotta kick back and talk this over, but—Come on, I mean, this is a dinner party! Let’s go have fun!”

They leave the rest of the dishes unwashed (“I’ll do them later,” Tommy says), and practically burst out of the kitchen into the living room. ““Boy do we have something to tell you,” B.J. says.

Lucy turns to them and raises her eyebrows. “Oh, really?” she says. “Because _we’ve_ also got something to tell _you_.”

B.J., who had not thought through what it was he was going to say next, but was determined to get it out before he lost his nerve, is taken aback. Before he can gather himself back up, Hawkeye says, “Yes,” and takes Lucy’s hand. “We’ve decided to run away and start a new life for ourselves.”

“You’ve—but you’re both gay!” B.J. says.

Lucy bursts into laughter at that. “Guess the cat’s out the bag, then.” She pats Hawkeye’s hand consolingly. “Well, it was a nice little romance while it lasted.”

“Just _what_ exactly have you two been up to?” Tommy says.

“This is why you chaperones weren’t supposed to leave us unattended,” Hawkeye says.

“Well, then, there seems to be no recourse left except for us to all have a grand, _gay_ old time,” Tommy says, reaching out and grabbing Lucy’s hand, pulling her out of her chair, through the door, and into the living room. For a second, B.J. and Hawkeye watch them go, then hear the sounds of Cole Porter come drifting out of the other room as Tommy evidently flips the record.

There’s about a million things B.J. could say to Hawkeye, now that they’ve got a moment alone. He could ask just how, exactly, Hawkeye ended up coming out to Lucy, or vice versa, whichever it was. He could ask Hawkeye if he’s been drinking, or if he’s nervous, or if he’s feeling better after the conversation they all just had. B.J. could try to sum up just how happy _he_ is right now, or try and tell Hawkeye just how much this evening with his friends has meant to him so far.

But instead, all he finds himself saying is, “Should we go dance?”

Hawkeye grins. “I thought you’d never ask,” he says. B.J. pulls him up and into his arms, then leads him through the door, into the rest of the night and whatever comes next.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realize that the homophobic myth of "recruiting" only really got started in the 1970s, but I really wanted to make gay unionizing jokes, so here we are with a bit of historical anachronism in this chapter, as a treat to me.
> 
> Thanks for everyone who stuck around while I was taking that mini hiatus between chapter 8 & this one! I do start a new job on Monday, so there may be a bit longer between chapters than there was for the first 8, but I am officially done with the break I was taking/back to working on SGG on a regular schedule, so Chapter 10 should be up in a few weeks!


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you as always to [horaetio](https://archiveofourown.org/users/horaetio/pseuds/horaetio) for beta reading. If you haven't checked out her B.J./Hawkeye AU of Sondheim's Company yet, you absolutely need to.

B.J. wakes up on Sunday morning, and his mind goes instantly the laundry list of logistics that can’t be put off any longer. He’s going back to work tomorrow, and he’ll have Erin for the week, which means they’ll need to find Hawkeye a place to stay. Hawkeye needs to call his boss and see if he can get his leave extended, and then probably have his dad ship some of his clothes. Or they have to buy him some. Something. As he’s thinking all this, he feels Hawkeye stirring besides him.

Hawkeye wakes up a little hung-over, but not so bad that he can’t hide it. He’s been sleeping in B.J.’s bed for the past three days, ever since they got back from the camping trip, and it still doesn’t _not_ feel weird. It still feels likes he’s taking someone else’s place. Pushing the thought out of his mind, he rolls over, sees that B.J. is also awake, and says, “We should call Margaret.”

Of all the things B.J. was expecting Hawkeye to say, that wasn’t it. “We should?” he replies. “I mean, I love Margaret, but didn’t you _just_ see her?”

“I did, but there’s been quite the development in our relationship since then. Don’t you want… I mean, I want to tell her.”

“You want to _tell her_? You want to tell Margaret. Our very dear, but _very_ Republican, friend.”

“I don’t—“ Hawkeye pauses and smiles. “I don’t think you’ve got quite the full picture of her, B.J.”

B.J. wave his hand. “Oh, sure, I know she was friends with a bunch of communists, back in her college days, apparently. I still don’t think taking the risk and letting her in on this particular secret of ours is the right idea.”

“Well, I understand if you don’t want to, but she already knows about me.”

“She—“ Once again, whatever B.J. had been expecting Hawkeye to say, that wasn’t it. “She already knows? About you? That you’re—that you’re gay?”

“No, that I’m touched in the head,” Hawkeye says. “Yes, that I’m gay.”

“What—I mean how…”

“In the army,” Hawkeye says. “We were drinking one night, and, well… the truth just kind of came out.”

“You came out to _Margaret_ and not _me_?”

“As we’ve already established, I was deep in the throws of what I thought to be unrequited love! We couldn’t disappoint the viewers by easing up on the ‘will they, won’t they’ tension _that_ soon into the program.”

B.J. rolls his eyes. “You can take the man out of theater, but you can’t take the theater out of the man.”

“I regret ever telling you about doing _Hamlet_ in college. It was a bit part!”

“But I’m sure you brought a lot of depth to your portrayal of Rosencrantz.”

“Getting back to the conversation at hand…” Hawkeye says.

“So she took it well?” B.J. says. “I mean, I guess she didn’t try to have you thrown out or anything.”

“You know, she’s actually a large part of why I decided to fly across the country to see you, you know.”

“She _is_? I mean, did she know you were coming to… for…” B.J. kind of gestures vaguely to the two of them in bed. 

Hawkeye laughs. “I mean, that wasn’t _quite_ the way I framed it. But yes, she knew I about my feelings for you.”

At this point, B.J. sits up more, reaches behind him for his pillow, and playfully hits Hawkeye with it. “You told _MARGARET_ about your feelings for me before you told _ME_?” he says.

Hawkeye laughs, putting his hands up. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. What I’m trying to say is, I just think it would be a fun conversation to have with Margaret—you know, telling her about the two of us, now. We don’t have to if you don’t want to, though.” He desperately wants to tell B.J. that Margaret is a lesbian, but he knows he needs to let her come out to B.J. herself.

Luckily, though, B.J. seems won over enough by what information Hawkeye _does_ feeling comfortable telling him himself. “Alright,” he says, laughing like he can’t believe what he’s saying. “Yeah. Let’s do it.”

At this, Hawkeye practically springs out of bed and straight upright, almost cartoon-like. B.J. laughs. “Give me a just a minute,” he says.

“I’ll go put some water on for coffee,” Hawkeye tells him, and makes his way into the kitchen.

About fifteen minutes later, B.J. and Hawkeye are huddled around B.J.’s phone in the kitchen, each with a coffee cup in hand and grins on their faces. B.J. asks for Margaret, and soon enough, the operator’s put them through.

“Hello?” she says.

“Margaret!” they both say at once.

“It’s B.J.,” Hawkeye says.

“And Hawkeye,” B.J. adds, elbowing Hawkeye in the ribs.

“So I guess he made it to you in one piece,” Margaret says.

“He did,” B.J. says. “Look, we’ve got something to tell you.”

“Oh?” she says, sounding cautious.

B.J. gives Hawkeye a look. “Shall I do the honors, then?” Hawkeye says.

“I think you’d better,” B.J. says.

Hawkeye leans a little closer in to the phone and says, “Margaret, that—everything we talked about—I mean, I sort of talked it over with B.J., now, too, and it worked out better than I’d let myself hope for.”

“Oh!” she says. “You mean you—you—“

“Yes,” B.J. says, laughing a little and taking the phone from Hawkeye’s hand. “Margaret, it’s—I’ve—Oh, I wish you were here in person, it’s too much to do over the phone.”

“Don’t tempt me,” Margaret says. “If it weren’t for the fact that I hate California and love my job, I’d be getting on a plane right now. Oh, I’m so happy for you two!”

“We’re pretty happy ourselves,” B.J. says. “I can’t believe—Hawkeye told me you knew about him since our army days!”

“So did he tell you that I…” Margaret trails off.

“I didn’t spill any of your secrets, Margaret,” Hawkeye says. “Only my own.”

“Well, B.J., let’s just say Hawkeye and I figured out way back in Korea that we were keeping the same secret.”

“You—“ B.J. says, then stops, seemingly at a loss for words.

“Is it really _so_ surprising?” Margaret says.

“Well, I mean… there were the various generals… Frank. Donald. Scully.”

“Yes, well,” Margaret says pointedly, “I’m not the only one who got divorced, now, was I?”

“I guess not, but…” B.J. says, and then he seems to realize something else and says, “So, Charles…”

“You don’t really think I _fell in love_ with the man, did you?” Margaret says.

“Well, _I_ don’t know,” B.J. says. “I mean, there was Frank…”

“The weasel,” Margaret says. “Don’t remind me. No, this thing with Charles is entirely different. It’s a marriage founded on mutual understanding, if you know what I mean.”

It takes B.J. a minute, but then he turns to Hawkeye, mouth agape, a question on his face. After Hawkeye nods at him, B.J. says, “Boy, we really were part of the most disgraceful MASH unit in Korea, weren’t we?”

“Well, it wasn’t quite a Minyan,” Hawkeye says, taking the phone back from B.J. “But I’m proud of us nonetheless.”

B.J. finds himself feeling unexpectedly sad, an ache starting up underneath the joy. The fact that Hawkeye and Margaret knew, that they had each other throughout the war, had an understanding of each other that B.J. had with no one—he realizes that he feels jealous of Margaret, almost more jealous than he’d be if they’d just told him they’d slept together. And apparently even Charles—he must have told Margaret he was gay at _some_ point before the war ended, in order for them to end up married so soon after they got to Boston. It’s not that B.J. even liked the guy, really, but still… He feels almost like he’s seeing the war in a whole different context, now. As traumatic as the war had been, he’d been sure it was something they’d gone through together. Now, though, he can’t help worrying that it’s something else that he managed to stand on the outside of, even while being right there in the center of it.

He realizes that Hawkeye is looking at him, even as Hawkeye keeps up their end of the conversation with Margaret. B.J. gives him a reassuring smile and tunes back in. Margaret and Hawkeye are busy talking a mile a minute, Hawkeye telling her he won’t be back on the East Coast for a while, Margaret making all sorts of half-baked plans about when she might be able to get away from work, about what holidays they might all have free. “Margaret, Margaret,” Hawkeye says, laughing at having to say her name multiple times to slow her down. When she finally pauses, he says, “I think you’re getting a little ahead of yourself.”

“I know, it’s only—I’m so happy! Look, hand me over to B.J., will you?” Margaret says.

B.J., surprised, takes the phone. “B.J. …” Margaret says. “All these letters, and phone calls, and all that time back in Korea… it’s silly that we didn’t say anything before now. I’m sort of sad we missed it, you know? Back when we had all that time together.”

B.J. doesn’t know what to say to Margaret. “I nearly missed it myself, you know,” he says.

“I’m just… I can’t wait until I can get you out on my coast, or I can come out to yours. We’re going to make about the strongest pot of coffee we ever had, and we’ll stay up till three just talking.”

“It’s a date,” B.J. says.

“I’m really… I’m really happy for you, B.J.”

“Thanks, Margaret,” he tells her, leaning into the phone a bit, as if that’ll put him closer to his friend, cross that distance.

There’s a silence, and B.J. doesn’t know what to say. How to make for all of it, all that time. It’s like it’s just hitting him now. He’s been so wrapped up in finally having Hawkeye, really having him, that he hadn’t realized, until now, that there’s some kind of loss baked into this, too. _If only I’d known earlier. If only he’d said something. If only we’d…_

Just as he’s starting to really worry about what will come out of his mouth next, though, Margaret says, almost curtly, “Well, I guess I better let you two go.” So some things haven’t changed. He’s not the only one who still has a hard time sitting in emotional vulnerability.

“Yes,” B.J. says, “I guess we’d better go. But talk soon, alright?”

“Yes,” Margaret says. “I’ll call you.”

And, just like that, B.J.’s come out to the second person in one week.

He hangs up the phone, then sits down in one of his kitchen chairs, coffee cup in hand, and sort of just stares into space for a moment. “Hey,” Hawkeye says, interrupting his lack of thought, “you okay?”

How many times had either of them asked the other that, back in the war? B.J. can count the times on one hand. Neither of them had wanted to acknowledge how close either one of them was to breaking at any given time. They hadn’t had the luxury. And now they do. They have the luxury of asking. B.J. takes a deep breath and pushes back his instinct to shrug off the question without thinking through his answer first. He looks down at his coffee, considering. He can’t look straight at Hawkeye; this feels, to him, almost more intimate than anything they’ve done in bed.

“I don’t know,” he says finally, almost gravely, then laughs and repeats it lightly. “I don’t know. I… how are you?”

“How am I? I’m fine,” Hawkeye says.

B.J. gives him a steady look. He hasn’t forgotten his worries last night that Hawkeye had been drinking too much. But he’s afraid to push the moment to where it might break. So all he says is, “My friends liked you.”

“Oh?” Hawkeye, raising an eyebrow. “Did they send you a telegram? _Such a fine night, and that chap you brought over was really terrific._ ”

“No,” B.J. says, “but I can tell. I’ve known them for ages.”

“Well,” Hawkeye says. “Good.”

There’s something hanging in the air. It’s not just B.J.; he realizes Hawkeye must feel it too, that draw back toward real life, towards everything outside of one another that is going to demand their attention soon, no matter how much they want to put it off.

“What have we got on the docket for today?” B.J. asks Hawkeye.

Hawkeye shrugs. “I don’t know. I suppose I should find myself some living accommodations, before you throw me so rudely out onto the street.” When Hawkeye sees the face B.J. makes at that joke, he wants to retract it, but he doesn’t know how. He realizes that, as vulnerable as they’ve been these past few days, he still doesn’t know how to quit talking _around_ certain issues, instead of actually talking them through. Instead of retracting the joke, though, he leans into it, unable to stop himself. “And what are you going to get up to while I take myself down to the Y?”

“I… I think I should go talk to Peggy,” B.J. says. The way he says it, the look on his face, Hawkeye gets the sense this isn’t going to be the normal Sunday evening exchange of Erin.

“About… what?” he says, trying to make the question sound casual.

“About… you, I guess.”

“Little old me?” Hawkeye says, pretending to twirl his hair, studying B.J.’s face intensely. When B.J. doesn’t laugh, Hawkeye drops the act and says, “What exactly are you going to tell her about… us?”

“I don’t know,” B.J. says. “That you’re here. That you’re staying at my house on weeks Erin isn’t here. I don’t know… I just feel like I should tell her.”

_Are you going to tell her that I’m sleeping in her bed?_ Hawkeye thinks. He doesn’t want to follow the train of thought to the root of why B.J. feels the need to tell Peggy all this. “Right, so. I’ll just go get a room at the Y, and you’ll tell your wife that your old war buddy is staying in San Francisco indefinitely. Great. Right. We’ve both got a busy day ahead of us.”

“Ex-wife,” B.J. says.

“What?”

“She’s my ex-wife.” B.J. says, but somehow Hawkeye still doesn’t feel all the way better.

***

Hawkeye’s unease about his trip over to see Peg doesn’t make B.J. feel any calmer about it. This past week has brought back up what he’s been wondering about for a long time—just what, exactly, Cynthia and Peg are to each other. It would make things so much easier, if they had something like he and Hawkeye do. But that seems like it would all be too simple. He’d called Peg just an hour or so ago, asked if he could come over early today, before it’s time to pick up Erin. He thinks she could tell something was up with him; she still knows how to read him.

Even as he walks up the steps to her apartment, he isn’t sure what he’s going to say to her. He’s so keyed up that, when it’s Cynthia, and not Peggy, that opens the door, he almost jumps.

“Oh, hi, Cynthia,” B.J. says.

“Hello to you too,” she says dryly, if not unkindly.

“Sorry,” B.J. says. “I was just expecting—is Peggy…?”

“She’s inside,” Cynthia says, stepping aside to let B.J. into the kitchen.

“Daddy!” Erin screams, running in from the living room and throwing herself around his legs.

“Hey, bug,” B.J. says, grinning and picking her up. He’s grateful that this week seems like it might be an easier transition than usual.

Cynthia puts the kettle on, grabbing two mugs from the cupboard and then asking B.J., “Do you want some tea?”

“Sure,” he says, and she grabs a third mug.

“I’ll go tell Peggy you’re here,” Cynthia says, making her way out of the kitchen.

Cynthia fetches Peggy, who comes into the kitchen with Cynthia’s daughter Annie, and, for a good half hour or so, the five of them are crowded into the kitchen together. The adults drink tea, and B.J. asks the girls how their weeks have been. He’s anxious to talk to Peggy alone, but just as anxious to get as much with time as Erin as he can. Cynthia half involves herself in the conversation, half looks through the Chronicle. As worried as he is about the upcoming conversation, and about just how Hawkeye is doing in the city without him, B.J. is grateful for this moment in the kitchen, this feeling of home, however odd that might be.

Eventually, though, Cynthia takes the girls into the other room, and Peggy gives B.J. a look. “What’s up?” she says.

B.J. fights back the instinct to make some joke, or shrug it off. He reminds himself that he wants to have this conversation. Or not wants to, really. Needs to. Something in him needs to. He doesn’t know how to transition into the conversation that he wants to have, though, and finds an unexpected question tumbling out of his mouth. “Were we… do you think we were really in love, when we first met?”

Peggy looks a little taken aback, but she answers lightly, “B.J., when we first met, we were both embarrassed that our parents were clearly trying to set us up.”

“Ah, but you agreed to go out on a date with me anyway, didn’t you?” B.J. says.

B.J.’s parents have always thrown dinner parties pretty regularly; one evening, back when B.J. had first started med school, they’d made even a bigger fuss than usual about him taking some time off studying for one of their dinners. And who should have happened to be there that night but Peggy and her parents. B.J. had never met any of them before; it was always a slightly different subset of high society San Francisco that cycled through his parents’ parties. Early on in the evening, though, a couple of pointed, _We should let the young people talk amongst themselves_ comments had made it clear just what, exactly, their parents had in mind.

At first, B.J. had bristled at it. His parents were so eager for him to settle down, while he felt like he barely had time to breathe during med school, yet alone fall in love. But Peggy had won him over despite himself. After their parents had walked off, leaving the two of them alone, she’d rolled her eyes and leaned in conspiratorially, saying, “Well, let’s pretend to have a really great time, then, shall we? Get them off our backs?”

“Okay,” B.J. had said.

“Quick, tell me a joke, so I can pretend to find it uproariously funny.”

“Hey, how do you know you _won’t_ going to find my joke uproariously funny?”

“Well, I have my doubts, but go ahead.”

“Okay. Which side of the tree has the most branches?”

“What?”

“Which side of the—“

“No, no, I heard you,” Peggy said.

“The outside,” B.J. replied.

“The what—the… oh, that’s bad.”

“Hey, you promised me you’d laugh uproariously.”

“Oh, right,” Peggy said, and then faked laughter that was both so cheesy and charming that B.J. had started to laugh too.

After dinner was over, when his parents had suggested he walk Peggy to her car, he’d secretly been more than happy to comply. “So,” he’d said, as they stood under the streetlight, “I know this was a set up, and normally, I’d love to disappoint my parents, but I find myself wanting to see you again anyway.”

“That’s just about the most romantic way a guy has ever asked me out.”

“Is it?”

“No,” Peggy said. “But I think I want to see you again anyway.”

B.J. thinks back to it now, standing here in Peggy’s kitchen, asking if they were in love. “Okay, well, not the first night,” B.J. says. “But you know. In the beginning. Do you think… were you in love with me?”

Peggy sighs, sinking down to sit at the small kitchen, her half-drunk mug of tea still in her hands, while B.J. remains standing, leaning against the counter. “Is this what we’re doing today?” she asks him.

“I don’t know,” B.J. sighs. “We just never… we never talked about it, back when we were first separated.”

“B.J., we talked ourselves blue in the face back when we were first separating.”

“But we didn’t talk about this. Don’t you think it’s important?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know if it’s important, or you don’t know if you were in love with me?” B.J. asks.

“Were you in love with _me_?”

“I don’t know.”

Peggy laughs then, nothing like the put-on laugh she affected when they’d first met. This one is quiet; intimate, somehow. “Why are you asking me this today, B.J.? Why now?”

“Hawkeye’s staying,” B.J. says.

“Staying—staying in the city?”

“Yeah. He’s getting a room at the Y, for now.”

“So he’s—he’s moving out to California? Isn’t he from Maine? Why the move?”

“I mean, we’re sort of—he’s seeing. He’s sort of testing if he wants to move out here or not.”

“Why the move?”

B.J. pauses. “Sort of—maybe the same reason you moved in with Cynthia.”

Peggy looks up at him sharply, then. It’s an expression of hers that he hasn’t seen in years, one that she used to give him all the time, when they were first together; it’s a look like she’s trying to figure him out. He doesn’t know what’s more terrifying: the thought that she’ll see right through to the heart of him, or the fear that she won’t.

B.J. waits for her to say something, but she remains, rather uncharacteristically for her, quiet. So finally, he speaks up. “Your letters to me, during the war. It reminded… the way you talked about Cynthia, it almost sounded like you were falling in love. I remember realizing that, one night. That that’s how it sounded. Wondering if that’s how you used to tell your friends about me. Wondering… wondering how my letters home to you sounded.”

“It did… I did wonder. There was something in them… but then you didn’t bring him home with you. You brought home the nightmares, and the drinking, but not him, and I was afraid to ask.”

“I don’t know how to understand it,” B.J. says. “Our marriage. If we weren’t in love. You were my best friend. For years and years. I wanted to wake up to you in the morning. I wanted to hear every little thing you had to say. I still… I still miss that, what we had. But not so sharply. And I missed… I missed him sharply, the whole time he was gone. It never stopped hurting like that. And I want… I want it to have meant something, our marriage. I want it to make sense. But I don’t know how to make sense of myself, if you and I were in love.” 

“I don’t think it’s as simple as all that,” Peggy says.

“As all what?” B.J. laughs. “Nothing about what I just said feels simple to me.”

“But I don’t think it’s a question of if you loved me or not, or if I loved you.” She pauses, thinks. “I think I did love you. I still love you, B.J. And I missed you, when you were gone. And I missed you when you came home. I missed the piece of you that you left somewhere… with him or the war, I don’t know. But I’d given a piece of myself away, too. There was a part of me that belonged to her, to Cynthia, that I couldn’t share with you anymore. And if you’ve… if you’ve found something like that with him, with Hawkeye, maybe this can make a new kind of sense.”

When she says this, B.J. doesn’t say anything, but he goes and sits down at the kitchen table next to her, his own mug of tea in his hands. It reminds him of what home used to feel like, and there’s still a comfort in it, and he almost wants to cry, knowing that he hasn’t lost this completely. Before he can decide what to say next, Peggy says, “I want to meet him.”

“Hawkeye?”

“No, the president of the united states. Yes, Hawkeye.”

Of all the places B.J. thought this conversation might go, this was not a direction he’d anticipated. “You got to meet Cynthia,” Peggy tells B.J., sounding almost indignant.

“And I’m an absolute _delight_ ,” Cynthia says, coming back into the kitchen.

“Have you been listening to our conversation this whole time?” B.J. says.

“Hey, I heard my name,” she says. “Besides, I was coming back in to the kitchen to tell you that the girls are getting a little whiny. I think we should start dinner now, and all eat together tonight, unless you have something quick at home to make, B.J., and you were going to head out soon.”

It’s been an exhausting week, even while it’s been filled with an almost overwhelming happiness. B.J. considers making his excuses and leaving. But he thinks about what Peggy said, about how they’ve both missed each other, but how maybe things can be different now. So he tells Cynthia, “I think I’ll stay, if that’s alright. Dinner together sounds great.”

“Sure,” she says, like it’s the easiest thing in the world. Like he didn’t have to even ask.

***

B.J. doesn’t introduce Hawkeye to Peggy right away. In fact, for the next few weeks, they rarely see anyone except each other. On weeks that B.J. has Erin, he usually sees Peggy and Cynthia for the usual midweek dinner, but on weeks where it’s him and Hawkeye, he still feels greedy, wants Hawkeye all to himself. Like he told Peggy, the sharp hurt of missing him never really went away, and he can’t help trying to compensate for the two years without him. Occasionally, they go over to Tommy and Lucy’s. But Tommy and Lucy have got a busy social calendar, and B.J. and Hawkeye, who had to do their best to be attached at the hip during the war among about a thousand responsibilities, are eager to spend free from obligation, alone together.

Sometimes, they go out into the city: down the street for coffee, out to dinner, out to the beach to stare at the water and talk. More often, they just stay home. Hawkeye knits, and B.J. reads. They make breakfast. They make dinner. They sit and joke and talk and play card games for two.

What they don’t do is go out to North Beach, to any of the spots that Peggy’s mentioned to B.J., places they might find other gay people. For one thing, most of the places to go are bars, not the ideal environment for either of them. But it’s more than that. There are places they could go where alcohol wouldn’t be a problem, readings at City Lights, cafes that only turn into bars at night. But having Hawkeye here, having Hawkeye choose him, hasn’t solved the issue of B.J.’s insecurity. Before, he used to imagine walking into one of those places and immediately being found out at not good at it, at being gay. Now, the worry has simply transformed into a worry that Hawkeye, seeing B.J. in one of those spaces, will realize that he’s not the guy he wants after all. It’s a worry too ludicrous to say out loud, but one he can’t seem to shake.

And Hawkeye, too, can’t seem to shake his own problems; namely, the drinking. When B.J. had asked him to stay, Hawkeye had imagined only his time in the city when he’d be with B.J. He hadn’t factored in just how long the weeks without him would be. He knows he’s here to try and settle down in San Francisco, see how he likes it, but the fact is, he’s not quite sure how to go about doing that. It’s not like he can go out and look for a job, not with his old one still waiting for him back in Maine. And he doesn’t want to go out and meet people, make friends. He had a hard enough time doing that before the war, let alone with all the, uh, quirks he came back with. Not knowing if he’ll stay, he’s afraid to start putting down roots, and can’t help feeling that it’s not worth the effort of really trying to be sociable. So he often finds himself alone, with nothing to do. Nothing, that is, except go out drinking.

The truth of it is, his drinking hasn’t gotten better since being here. It’s just gotten different. He finds, as he has before, that he’s unable to quit cold turkey. And, not wanting B.J. to worry, he’s decided that the logical thing to do is try and get it out of his system on weeks when B.J. isn’t around. He finds that he’s usually able to make it through almost whole weeks without drinking. He usually slips up once or twice, has to disappear into the bathroom and down a few shots when B.J. is preoccupied (or perhaps just choosing to look the other way). But on weeks in the Y, with no job to worry about missing, with no one to worry about his whereabouts or state of mind, he finds himself drinking more and more.

Hawkeye remembers telling Margaret way back when about how he refused to compromise for anybody, how it was hard but worth it. Here, in San Francisco, it’s not that he’s struck up some sort of compromise with B.J. He’s struck one with himself. After so long of believing this love would go unrequited, to have it returned—Hawkeye finds himself still waiting for the catch. He finds himself taking all the most messy and undesirable parts of himself and trying to box them away where B.J. can’t see, spending his weeks without B.J. living out all the worst of his neuroses, his weeks with B.J. tiptoeing around them.

B.J.’s aware of this more than Hawkeye knows. There’s always some sort of quality, one that B.J. can’t really put his finger on, to Hawkeye’s moods when their weeks together start, and when they’re about to end. Hawkeye always shows up seemingly a little worse for the wear, and towards the end of the week, he gets antsy, like even as he’s trying to spend as much time with B.J. as he can, there’s some part of him that can’t wait to get out of there.

A few weeks into this, and it’s not B.J. and not Hawkeye that names the problem, but Peggy. B.J., having just said goodbye to Hawkeye, shows up at Peggy’s looking a little more exhausted than usual, and she ushers him into the kitchen, casually telling Cynthia she thinks B.J. could use a cup of tea, asking her to watch the kids.

“So,” Peggy says, filling the kettle up at the sink, “I notice you still haven’t brought Hawkeye by. Everything going all right with you two?”

“Look, Peggy, just because I’m a little hesitant to bring the guy by to meet my ex wife doesn’t mean everything’s going badly for us.”

“I know,” she says. “He hasn’t yet Erin yet, either, has he? She hasn’t mentioned it to me, anyway.”

“I… he’s got a thing about kids.”

“As in, he doesn’t like them?” she says, raising her eyebrows as she puts the kettle on the stove.

“As in, there are things that happened in Korea which still very much affect him to this day.”

“Is this something you’ve talked about with him?”

“Briefly. I don’t see why you’re so anxious for me to introduce my alcoholic boyfriend to our daughter,” B.J. says. Even as the words are leaving his mouth, he regrets it. He can’t help but feel like he’s betraying Hawkeye, talking about him this way, even without him in the room. It’s just that Peggy is getting right to the heart of things that scare B.J. the most, the potential incompatibilities between the future B.J. most wants and the realities of the life he’s living now.

Peggy seems to know this, because she’s very gentle when she says, “B.J., does this feel sustainable to you? Every other week with Hawkeye, every other week with Erin? I’m only asking because I want—I want something that’s good, for you. Something that lasts.”

B.J. feels a lump in his throat. He wants to leave the room, to get Erin and go home without answering the question. But he knows Peggy will just ask again. It’s not like he hasn’t been asking himself the same thing, asking just how long this can all last. “I don’t—I don’t know what else to do,” he admits.

“It’s just—so right now, he’s not in treatment for his drinking, and he’s not working, and he doesn’t have any friends in the city, aside from you, right?”

“He’s on leave from a job back on the East Coast. And I already talked to him about treatment, he doesn’t want—I know it worked for me, but I can’t make him—“

“B.J., honey, calm down,” Peggy says, then blushes a little at having called him “honey.” B.J. doesn’t want to admit how comforting he found it. Peggy rushes on, “I’m not trying to be accusatory. I’m just wondering what the plan is.”

“There isn’t a plan.” 

“Look, why don’t you bring him by to meet us? I talked about it with Cynthia, and you know she hosts Shabbat most Fridays for our friends. Why don’t you bring Hawkeye to that? He doesn’t really know anyone in the city, B.J. I think it would be good for him. I think it would be good for you. We can have my parents watch the girls, if we need to.”

B.J.’s heart aches at the mention of Peggy’s parents. He hasn’t seen them since the divorce went through, even though he used to see them more than his own folks. It’s not that they blame him, exactly—at least, he hopes they don’t. Peggy tends to avoid the subject of them, now; he knows they had a hard time with the divorce, and he suspects that Peggy trying to explain that she and B.J. are actually still on good terms might actual complicate things more for her. Even though they didn’t voice it themselves at the time, B.J. is realizing that it’s hard to explain why they aren’t still together if you leave out the fact of Cynthia and Hawkeye.

Still, he tries not to let himself dwell on that now. “I can ask him,” B.J. says. 

“Please do,” she says.

***

The next week, Tuesday morning, B.J. is taking a shower before work when Hawkeye comes into the bathroom. Most days, Hawkeye seems to make his way in and shave or brush his teeth while B.J.’s showering. It’s not like Hawkeye has anywhere to be, and he could probably wait for his turn to use the bathroom, but they both find the routine of it comforting, the feeling of crowding into one space together. B.J., with the shower curtain between him and Hawkeye, finds the courage to say casually, “Hey, how would you feel about having dinner with Peggy and Cynthia this weekend? Well, not just dinner. Cynthia host Shabbat on Fridays for some of their friends, so we’re invited to that.”

“Oh, really?” Hawkeye says, around a mouth full of toothpaste.

He’s had the feeling this question would come up at some point or another—do you want to meet Peggy and Cynthia—although the Shabbat is an unexpected element. He has, to tell the truth, been somewhat terrified of the question. Peggy has lived in his mind for so long as a collection of photographs, letters, and occasional home video footage, that it’s hard for him to even really imagine meeting her face to face. B.J. told Hawkeye about her and Cynthia, that they’re a couple, too, so it’s not that Hawkeye thinks that there’s any resentment toward him on her part. And it’s not exactly resentment that he feels towards her, either. After all, he’s got B.J., now. At least for the time being.

But that’s the thing of it. The time being. Peggy has known B.J. longer than Hawkeye. She’s got a life here in this city, and she’s the mother of B.J.’s child. She isn’t going anywhere. She has, in some ways, still a more guaranteed place in B.J.’s life than Hawkeye does. So while knows (hopes) that Friday won’t be some sort of test, he can’t help worrying that if he somehow ends up falling short in her eyes, it will only complicate further their already complicated situation.

Still, what can he say? No? He has the sense that this meeting is important to B.J., maybe even more important than B.J. himself realizes. Hawkeye already feels somewhat responsible for ruining B.J.’s chance for a normal life with a wife and kid; he doesn’t want to make it worse. He knows that if he continues to be the boyfriend that can’t be brought around, something’s gonna give, and he has a feeling that he might not like the fallout.

“Hawk?” B.J. says, peeking his head around the shower curtain. Hawkeye realizes he’s been standing here brushing his teeth without answering for a good long minute.

“Sorry,” Hawkeye says, “I was counting my brush strokes. You know how I am.”

B.J. rolls his eyes. “We don’t have to go, if you don’t want to,” B.J. says. “I know it’s weird.”

“No, no. I want to.” Hawkeye pauses. “And Erin will be there, I’m assuming?”

“Well, that was the other thing I wanted to ask you about. Peg could get her parents to babysit if—“

“No, I’d like to meet her,” Hawkeye says. B.J. looks surprised, and like he’s holding back a grin, which makes Hawkeye feel terrible, both for not having met her before now, and for how terrified he feels at having agreed to do so this week. Still, the fact that it’ll be a Shabbat with Peggy and Cynthia’s friends makes him feel better. He’s good in crowds, in playing a room, and has to imagine that playing to a roomful of people who are presumably mostly gay and/or Jewish has got to up the chances that his particular brand will land. The dinners that he and B.J. have had with Tommy and Lucy have made Hawkeye realize how much he misses that, misses spending time with people who he can be his authentic self with. Not that he drops his performance, just—people who understand just exactly what kind of show it is that he’s putting on.

So maybe it’ll be good. And maybe he can lose himself in the crowd a little; maybe it’ll soften the blow, dull whatever sort of ache will come with meeting B.J.’s ex-wife and daughter. Maybe it’ll all go okay. Hawkeye, for once, has to imagine that everything will go okay, because he doesn’t want to confront what will happen if it doesn’t.

“It’ll be good,” he says, and B.J. smiles, then pops his head back behind the curtain. Hawkeye goes back to brushing his teeth, counting each brushstroke like a rosary bead, a part of prayer he doesn’t know the words to but undertakes all the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmaoooo well here it was after another two month wait. I've already started working on chapter 11, so i'm hoping to have the next installment up more quickly, but with work & other things going on in my life rn it's definitely been slower to get chapters done. Definitely still really excited about what's left to tell in this story & grateful for people who are sticking around to read it <3


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